The role of personality, imagined stressors, and level of depression on information processing

Abstract

Sociotropy/dependency refers to the personality style of an individual who places an extremely high value on close interpersonal relationships (Blatt, D' Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1982), and is highly invested in positive exchanges with other people (Beck, 1983). Autonomy/self-criticism refers to the personality style of an individual who places an extremely high value on personal achievement, freedom of choice, and independence from others (Beck, 1983; Blatt & Schichman, 1982). Depression and/or depressive symptomatology has been predicted to occur when sociotropic/dependent or autonomous/self-critical individuals experience negative life events in the area of their vulnerability (Beck, 1983; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). This matching of vulnerability to specific life event is known as the "congruency hypothesis'' (Segal, Shaw, & Vella, 1989).

According to the congruency hypothesis, sociotropic/dependents are at greatest risk of becoming depressed when they experience a negative interpersonal event. and autonomous/self-criticals are at greatest risk of becoming depressed when they experience a negative achievement event. The congruency hypothesis predicts that cognitive processing differences will become apparent after the occurrence of congruent but not incongruent stressors. In contrast to the congruency hypothesis, the Differential Activation Hypothesis (DAR; Teasdale, 1983) predicts that any type of negative life event can trigger depression in vulnerable individuals, and that the event does not have to match an underlying vulnerability. It proposes that processing differences, once in a sad mood, distinguish between vulnerable and nonvulnerable individuals -- vulnerable individuals will exhibit distorted cognitive processing whereas nonvulnerable individuals will demonstrate normal cognitive processing. Consequently, the DAR predicts that cognitive processing differences will become apparent after the occurrence of both congruent and incongruent stressors.

The current investigation examined changes in information processing in sociotropic/dependent and autonomous/self-critical individuals with varying levels of depression immediately following imagined negative events, and examined whether these changes were better explained by the congruency hypothesis or the DAR. By doing so, this investigation attempted to answer whether changes in information processing after the occurrence of negative life events are triggered by a match between the negative event and an underlying vulnerability, or if information processing changes are triggered by negative mood alone. Changes in cognitive processes were assessed through the use of a computerized attention task, the Deployment of Attention Task (DOAT; Gotlib, McLaughlan, & Katz, 1988), and changes in cognitive products were assessed through the use of personal narratives, including an open-ended thought sample, a cued autobiographical memory task, and a future behaviour predictions task.

The results from the DOAT demonstrated modest support for the congruency hypothesis in sociotropic/dependent individuals. Sociotropic/dependent individuals, with low levels of depression, demonstrated a positive bias (i.e., avoiding negative words and attending to positive words) after imagining the neutral situation, a protective bias (i.e., avoiding negative words but attending equally to positive and neutral words) after imagining the incongruent threat, and an entire loss of these biases after imagining the congruent threat. After imagining the congruent threat, the performance of sociotropic/dependents, with low levels of depression, on the DO AT was indistinguishable from sociotropic/dependents with high levels of depression. This pattern, however, was only evident for the interpersonally-based word pairs on the DOAT, not for the achievement-based word pairs.

In comparison, the DOAT results for autonomous/self-critical individuals demonstrated support for the DAH. Autonomous/self-critical individuals, with low levels of depression, demonstrated a protective bias (on the achievement-based word pairs) and a positive bias (on the interpersonally-based word pairs) after imagining the neutral situation, and an entire loss of these biases after imagining both the congruent and incongruent threats. In addition, the results from one of the narrative measures, the open-ended thought sample, demonstrated clear support for the DAH. In the openended thought sample, sociotropic/dependents and autonomous/self-criticals reported having more concerns after both the achievement and interpersonal threats compared to the neutral condition, and did not report significantly more concerns in the area related to their underlying vulnerability.

The results of the other narrative measures, the cued-autobiographical memory task and the future behaviour predictions task, did not clearly support either the congruency hypothesis or the DAH. Instead, these results were more consistent with a schema-based model of personality (Cane, Olinger, Gotlib, & Kuiper, 1986) which predicts that sociotropic/dependents should demonstrate more interpersonal than achievement content in their cognitive products, and autonomous/self-criticals should demonstrate more achievement than interpersonal content in their cognitive products. In a schema-based model of personality, the accessibility of such material does not change after the occurrence of congruent stressors. On the cued-autobiographical memory task, sociotropic/dependents recalled more interpersonally-based than achievement-based personal memories, and autonomous/self-criticals recalled more achievement-based than interpersonally-based personal memories. Autonomous/selfcriticals were also significantly faster at recruiting achievement-based memories than interpersonally-based memories. Last, individuals with higher levels of depression recalled fewer positive personal memories, and took longer to recall these memories, than individuals with lower levels of depression. On the future behavior predictions task, subjects with lower levels of depression reported having more positive expectations for the future than subjects with higher levels of depression, and sociotropic/dependents reported more positive interpersonally-based expectations for the future than autonomous/self-criticals.

Overall, the current investigation demonstrated modest support for the congruency hypothesis on the DOAT in sociotropic/dependent individuals, and clear support for the DAH on the DOAT in autonomous/self-critical individuals. In addition, support for the DAH was obtained in sociotropic/dependents and autonomous/self-criticals on one measure of cognitive products immediately following imagined negative events. The results of the remaining two measures of cognitive products were more consistent with a schema-based model of personality. The implications of the current findings for understanding the role of personality as a vulnerability factor for depression, an explanation of the current findings, and the limitations of the current investigation are discussed.