Self-Schema Processing of Depressed and Nondepressed Content: The Effects of Vulnerability to Depression

The present study investigated the nature of self-referent information processing in individuals cognitively vulnerable for depression, but currently nondepressed. These vulnerable nondepressed individuals, as well as nonvulnerable nondepressed and vulnerable depressed controls, were required to make two types of ratings on depressed- and nondepressed-content personal adjectives. Halt of the adjectives in each content category were rated for a semantic attribute, whereas half were rated for degree of self-reference. These ratings were then followed by an incidental-recall period, in which subjects recalled as many of the adjectives as possible. Consistent with predictions generated from a content-specific self-schema model, nonvulnerable nondepressives exhibited the greatest incidental recall for nondepressed-content adjectives receiving a prior self-referent judgment. Also consistent with this model, vulnerable depressives showed enhanced self-referent recall for both types of content. This pattern suggests a view of self in mild depressives that incorporates both normal and pathological content. Vulnerable nondepressed individuals, however, did not show any evidence of negative self-schema processing. Instead, their recall pattern for self-referent material was highly consistent with the results displayed by nonvulnerable nondepressed controls. This finding is discussed in terms of theoretical models that posit that certain negative cognitions serve as vulnerability markers in depression.