Negative recall bias as a predictor of susceptibility to induced depressive mood

Abstract

Two experiments examined recall of emotionally positive and negative nouns by subclinically depressed and non-depressed groups. Neither experiment found evidence that depression was associated with a bias towards better recall of negative material. The experiments also examined recall for positive and self-esteem threatening (SET) nouns. Both investigations found a bias favouring better recall of SET words than positive words in the depressed group, but no recall bias was found in the non-depressed group as a whole. However, some non-depressed participants showed the depressive recall bias and some did not. The former but not the latter were found to be susceptible to induced depressive mood. The results are interpreted in terms of a depressogenic schema centering on threat to self-esteem.