ERIC ED373271: Self Predictions and Depressive Realism pdf

ERIC ED373271: Self Predictions and Depressive Realism

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Description of the Book:

Research has demonstrated that depressed people lack the optimistic bias evidenced by nondepressed persons and that the former may be more realistic in predicting the outcome of future events (depressive realism hypothesis). This study assesses the depressive realism hypothesis by comparing the accuracy of depressed and nondepressed people’s self-predictions of a series of life events. One hundred college students (75 females) answered the Beck Depression Inventory and then made self-predictions about a series of future life events. Results indicate that depressed persons made significantly more pessimistic predictions than nondepressed subjects. Depressed persons were more accurate than nondepressed ones for pessimistic judgments while the latter were more accurate on optimistic judgments. No mediating factors such as event controllability and base rate were found for prediction accuracy. One possible explanation for the finding that depressives are more accurate than nondepressed subject in predicting undesirable events is that nondepressed persons may be more apt to avoid undesirable outcomes whereas depressed individuals may not elude these.

Included are two tables which summarize the data and a copy of the Life Events Questionnaire. (RJM

• Creator/s: ERIC
• Date: 1993
• Year: 1993
• Book Topics/Themes: ERIC Archive, College Students, Depression (Psychology), Expectation, Higher Education, Life Events, Mental Health, Prediction, Predictive Measurement

An excerpt captured from the PDF book