On the revision of negative expectations in people with depressive symptoms - A series of two experimental investigations
Final Report Abstract
People with depressive symptoms have difficulty correcting established negative views when they have new positive experiences. The process of cognitive immunisation is being discussed as a new mechanism for this unfavourable information processing: According to this, positive experiences that contradict negative expectations are subsequently devalued or reinterpreted. The aim of the project was to investigate the influence of cognitive immunisation on the correction of negative expectations in people with depression in two experimental studies. For this purpose, established experimental paradigms of depression research were used, which were slightly modified for this project: Study 1 examined the change in negative performance expectations through positive performance feedback, while Study 2 looked at the change in negative future expectations and therapy expectations through positive experience reports from other patients. In both studies, cognitive immunisation was promoted in one experimental condition and inhibited in another. In addition, there was a distraction control condition and a control condition without instruction. As an additional research question, both subprojects investigated whether there were differences between people with episodic (MDE) vs. persistent depressive disorder (PDD) in the change in negative expectations and in the response to the respective experimental manipulations. In study 1, 139 people with diagnosed depressive disorder were included (n = 63 with MDE and n = 76 with PDD). The results show that there were no significant differences between the experimental groups with regard to the change in negative performance expectations. In Study 2 (N = 156, of which n = 102 with MDE and n = 54 with PDD), there was also no significant difference overall between the experimental conditions in the change in negative future expectations, although there were unexpected gender differences here. With regard to the comparison of MDE vs. PDD, there were no significant differences in the context of performance expectations (Study 1), but there were significant differences with regard to the change in treatment expectations (Study 2): Thus, people with MDE adjusted their therapy expectations relatively strongly after viewing the positive experience reports, whereas this change was significantly weaker in people with PDD. The results of Study 2 also show that people with PDD responded particularly strongly to the manipulation to promote cognitive immunisation and changed their treatment expectations very little, especially in this experimental condition. The project results suggest that although cognitive immunisation may indeed be a relevant factor with regard to the failure to correct negative expectations in depression, its significance must be considered in a differentiated manner.
Publications
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Learning from other patients – A feasibility study to establish an ecologically valid paradigm to modify negative expectations in depression through authentic psychotherapeutic treatment reports. Journal of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, 33(4), 195-206.
Rapo, Edith; Rief, Winfried & Kube, Tobias
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How people with major depression adjust their expectations of future life events in response to other patients’ reports of the positive effects of psychotherapy. Center for Open Science.
Kube, Tobias; Rapo, Edith; Glombiewski, Julia & Rief, Winfried
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Modulating the Value of Positive Feedback Does Not Influence Expectation Change in Major depression – What Can be Learned from a Failed Replication?. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 49(1), 50-61.
Houben, Mimi; Rief, Winfried; Gärtner, Thomas & Kube, Tobias
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Understanding Biased Expectation Change in Depression – The Influence of State Affect and Affect Regulation. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 49(1), 34-49.
Rapo, Edith; Milde, Christopher; Glombiewski, Julia Anna & Kube, Tobias
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Induced negative affect hinders self-referential belief updating in response to social feedback.. Emotion, 25(1), 174-185.
Kube, Tobias & Korn, Christoph
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“It's safer to believe that others don't like me” – A qualitative study on the paradoxical value of negative core beliefs in depression. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 184, 104665.
Kube, Tobias & Rauch, Lisa
