Depression is linked to a genuine pessimistic bias rather than a realistic view of the world
PsyPost • • health
Key Points:
- A study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy found that people with depression exhibit genuinely pessimistic biases about future positive events, rather than simply having a more realistic outlook.
- Individuals with high depressive symptoms predicted positive events as less likely than they actually occurred, while those with low depression showed an optimistic bias by overestimating positive outcomes.
- Depressed participants were able to update their beliefs about positive events when those events occurred but tended to revert back to pessimistic expectations over time, indicating fragile optimism.
- In contrast, updates to beliefs about negative events became deeply entrenched in depressed individuals, suggesting a stronger attachment to negative expectations.
- The findings challenge the theory of depressive realism and highlight the complexity of learning and maintaining positive expectations in depression, with implications for improving therapeutic approaches.
