Giving (Course) Credit Where Credit’s Due!

Abstract

Giving (Course) Credit Where Credit's Due! Social Cognition: Special Issue on Depression. N. A. Kuiper and E. T. Biggins (Eds.). New York: Guilford, 1985. (144 pp.) After examining Social Cognition's Special Issue on Depression, one could be forgiven for concluding that American psychology students are the nearest human equivalent of the experimental laboratory rat currently in existence. Every aspect of students' cognitive functioning, it would seem, is eagerly being researched by industrious social and cognitive psychologists, while the motivation of the students to experience such an onslaught is enhanced by the awarding of credits toward their course requirements. Although this introduction may seem unduly unkind, it intends to draw the attention of the unwary to the fact that the bulk of the work in this issue of the journal tells us a great deal about mildly dysphoric 19 to 20 year olds, but we do not yet know how such samples relate to clinically depressed populations. Thus, before therapists can be specifically influenced by the findings reported in the volume, the work itself needs to be replicated with clinical populations meeting recognized diagnostic criteria for depressive illnesses. This important point having been made, I need to indicate that this volume on depression is of interest to cognitive psychotherapists, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to researchers in this field. As Shaw points out in the volume, clinicians need exposure to sociocognitive research to enhance and broaden their conceptual understanding of depression. In recent years, researchers in the areas of social cognition and depression have emphasized the need to identify the cognitive structures and processes involved in depression and have seen the importance of studying social interactions. Some degree of integration of the two fields may, therefore, be of mutual benefit. This special issue of Social Cognition contains six research and two review articles. Several of the studies reported explored the cognitive content or structure of possible vulnerability factors for depression. In regard to content, Anderson and Arnoult demonstrated that the most important attributional dimension predictive of an individual's level of depression (or loneliness or shyness) is controllability. They postulated that a certain attributional style led to low expectations of success, low motivation, and low performance. Because there seems to be a common attributional style in depression, loneliness, and shyness, one might conclude that a common treatment approach is warranted. Rholes and colleagues also focused on cognitive content. They demonstrated that cognitions associated with anxiety focus on threat of loss, whereas those associated with depression focus on loss. It is interesting that they also found loss cognitions were related to anxiety. This finding can presumably be explained by the fact that, clinically, depression and anxiety frequently occur together. The cognitions explored were state-dependent and did not predict future depressive episodes. Hopelessness and dysfunctional attitudes were shown to be more stable cognitive structures that functioned as longer-term vulnerability factors for depression. Kuiper et al. pursued the theme of content by examining the nature of selfreferent information processing in individuals with cognitive vulnerability to depression. …