Dysphoric Reassurance Seeking Breeds Contempt: Experimental Evidence

Abstract

To test interpersonal theoretical views on depression, the current research examined responses to manipulated perceptions of romantic partners’ excessive reassurance seeking as a function of partners’ depression symptoms. Participants reported heightened frustration and reduced acceptance of partners when they were led to believe that dysphoric partners engaged in excessive reassurance seeking. Effects on acceptance were partially mediated by frustration. Furthermore, these effects were dependent on participants’ concerns about regulating partners’ affect and security. only participants who reported high concern about regulating partners exhibited these negative responses to manipulated reassurance seeking. alternative explanations regarding depression contagion, attachment anxiety, and construct activation were not supported. results provide experimental support for predictions regarding negative responses to depressotypic reassurance seeking and suggest that they occur primarily when reassurance seeking exerts pressure to regulate the thoughts and feelings of dysphoric partners. Interpersonal models of depression propose that the distress of depressed individuals is not only due to intrapersonal cognitive and affective processes, but it also arises from the strains that depression imposes upon interpersonal relationships (Coyne, 1976b, 1999; Joiner & Metalsky, 2001; Joiner, Metalsky, Katz, & Beach, 1999). Ac