Anubis
Well-known member
The popular claim: is that depressed people believe false ideas about themselves and others. In other words, they are self-deceived and out of touch with reality. This kind of self-deceptive thinking is alleged to be a factor distinguishing depressed people from "normal" people.
HOWEVER scientific research leads ... to the opposite conclusion. That is, depressives seem to have a BETTER grasp of reality than the "normal psychiatrists" treating them.
The Study: Lauren Alloy (Temple University) and Lyn Abramson (University of Wisconsin) designed an experiment in which one of the investigators secretly manipulated the outcome of a series of games. Both depressed and non-depressed subjects took part in these fixed games.
The Results: (extremely summarized): Non-depressed subjects overestimated the degree to which they had personally influenced the outcome when the game was rigged so that they did well, and underestimated their own contribution to the outcome when they did poorly. Turning to the depressed subjects, Alloy and Abramson found that depressed individuals assessed both situations far more realistically. The rather starting conclusion is that depressives may suffer from a deficit in self-deception. (Similar results were obtained by the distinguished behavioral psychologist Peter Lewinson, who found that depressed people are often able to judge others' impressions of them more accurately than non-depressed subjects are. Other similar research has found that high levels of self-deception are strongly correlated with conventional notions of mental health, and that subjects with so-called mental disorders evidence lower levels of self-deception than "normal people".)
This kinda surprised me when I first heard it. It explains why seemingly upbeat Hollywood stars turn out to be so depressed in their later years. Perhaps the ruse of self-deception gets weaker as we grow older? As for us current downers, maybe our only problem is that we've reached this (more-realistic) state a lot sooner than the so-called normal people? lol
HOWEVER scientific research leads ... to the opposite conclusion. That is, depressives seem to have a BETTER grasp of reality than the "normal psychiatrists" treating them.
The Study: Lauren Alloy (Temple University) and Lyn Abramson (University of Wisconsin) designed an experiment in which one of the investigators secretly manipulated the outcome of a series of games. Both depressed and non-depressed subjects took part in these fixed games.
The Results: (extremely summarized): Non-depressed subjects overestimated the degree to which they had personally influenced the outcome when the game was rigged so that they did well, and underestimated their own contribution to the outcome when they did poorly. Turning to the depressed subjects, Alloy and Abramson found that depressed individuals assessed both situations far more realistically. The rather starting conclusion is that depressives may suffer from a deficit in self-deception. (Similar results were obtained by the distinguished behavioral psychologist Peter Lewinson, who found that depressed people are often able to judge others' impressions of them more accurately than non-depressed subjects are. Other similar research has found that high levels of self-deception are strongly correlated with conventional notions of mental health, and that subjects with so-called mental disorders evidence lower levels of self-deception than "normal people".)
This kinda surprised me when I first heard it. It explains why seemingly upbeat Hollywood stars turn out to be so depressed in their later years. Perhaps the ruse of self-deception gets weaker as we grow older? As for us current downers, maybe our only problem is that we've reached this (more-realistic) state a lot sooner than the so-called normal people? lol