Sadder and Less Gullible?—Investigating Depressive Realism Effects in Judgments of Veracity

Introduction: Depressive realism literature suggests that depressed individuals’ negative self-view is correlated with less self-serving positivity bias. Also, research suggests some social cognitive advantages for individuals with subclinical levels of depression (dysphoria), especially in identifying negative emotions. This study tested the hypothesis that individuals with dysphoric symptoms show less of a truth bias and are more accurate at detecting deception. Moreover, this effect was expected to be stronger in positive statements (I like) than in negative (I dislike) statements. Finally, a lower judgment confidence and a more accurate assessment of their lie detection ability were expected to be found in individuals with dysphoric symptoms. Methods: Two hundred-sixty-nine participants judged the veracity of 24 video statements. Analyses tested the hypotheses with three different measures of depression: the IPIP-240 Depression Subscale, the PHQ-9, and the DESC-I. Results: In contrast to the assumptions, results found no evidence that individuals with dysphoric symptoms were better at identifying false and true messages in general. While higher scores of the DESC-I were negatively correlated with accuracy in lie detection, the IPIP-240 and the PHQ-9 were found to be not significantly correlated with lie detection accuracy. While for like statements individuals with dysphoric symptoms and individuals without (measured with the DESC-I) were not different in accuracy, individuals with dysphoric symptoms had lower accuracy scores in dislike statements than individuals without. Moreover, the PHQ-9 found lower measures of judgment confidence in individuals with dysphoric symptoms compared to individuals without, while the other depression measurements showed no significant differences. Furthermore, no evidence for a more accurate assessment of lie detection ability in individuals with dysphoric symptoms was found. Discussion: Results and directions for future research are discussed.

Depressive Symptoms and Self-Esteem as Moderators of Metaperceptions of Social Rejection Versus Acceptance: A Truth and Bias Analysis

Metaperception involves making judgments regarding what others think of us and is important in navigating the social world. We measured the degree of accuracy and bias in metaperceptions of liking and desire for future contact following unstructured social interactions with new acquaintances and tested how depression and self-esteem influence bias and accuracy in these judgments. Results indicated that depression and lower self-esteem are associated with negative directional biases but are also associated with lower reciprocity bias (the tendency to assume that partners return one’s feelings of liking and acceptance). In addition, individuals with lower self-esteem displayed greater meta-insight (accuracy when controlling for bias) compared with those with higher self-esteem. Implications for cognitive and depressive realism theories of depression are discussed.

Fifth Addenda to Criticism of the Current Science in the World

This article is as a proof to my previous papers which confirms and approves them internationally. Also some scientific problems of Iran were discussed. Again it was concluded that Iran (and I) will not become anything in the science, I do not have any intelligence and (Iran and I) will not become anything in general. Therefore according to the principles of DEPRESSIVE REALISM, I must always be happy [1-7]. It was suggested that the only way for the general advancement of Iran is to make Iran as a state of USA officially.

Fourth Addenda to Criticism of the Current Science in the World

In this article some political aspects of my previous papers were discussed and some scientific problems of Iran in the fields of oil and gas, nuclear, politics and military were reviewed [1-6]. Again it was said that Iran is (and I am) not anything in the science (including political sciences, petroleum sciences, nuclear sciences and military sciences), I do not have any intelligence (since I could not solve even the Iran scientific problems mentioned in this article and my previous papers [1- 6]. Therefore I will certainly not be able to solve world scientific problems since the world scientific problems are much more difficult than Iran scientific problems) and Iran and I are nothing in general. Therefore, according to the principles of DEPRESSIVE REALISM, I must always be happy. It was also concluded that the only way for the scientific advancement of Iran is to regard Iran as a state of USA (United States of America).

Testing for Depressive Realism in a Clinically Depressed Sample

The depressive-realism effect refers to a phenomenon in which depressed individuals are more realistic at assessing the relationship between two events than non-depressed individuals. Recent evidence suggests that the depressive realism hypothesis is weaker than first thought. Thus, we sought evidence for depressive-realism under conditions that we hypothesised would maximise the effect. We tested a clinically depressed sample of participants who were administered a rumination induction. Twenty-eight clinically depressed and 39 non-depressed participants were randomly allocated to either a rumination condition (focused on the causes, consequences, and meaning of their mood) or a distraction condition (focused on external objects/events such as a classroom). Participants then completed a contingency task in which there was no relationship between their responses and an outcome, and they were asked to make a judgment of how much control they had over an outcome. Both groups and conditions did not differ in their judgments of control; participants in all conditions showed a non-normative judgment of control. The depressive-realism effect was not observed in this study, even when depressed participants were encouraged to ruminate. Rather, the present study clearly demonstrates the robustness of the illusion of control.