Anxiety

A new study suggests depressed people may be missing out on the positive things in life. The study was conducted by Laren Conklin, graduate student in psychology, and Daniel Strunk, assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

The researchers used a computer game known as BeanFest to measure participants’ attitudes toward learning new negative and positive information. The game contains good beans and bad beans. A person can distinguish between the two types of beans based on how many speckles a bean has and the shape of the bean. Good beans earned a participant points while bad beans took away points. The goal of the game is to get as many points as possible.

Seventeen college participants with clinical depression and seventeen students without depression participated in the study. During the game phase, each participant played the game, deciding whether or not to accept or reject a bean as it appeared on the computer screen. After each turn, the particpant was shown how many points he or she earned or had detracted if he or she accepted a bean or how many points he or she would have earned or had detracted if he or she had accepted the bean.

Each bean was shown three different times during this phase so that participants had a sufficient opportunity to learn which beans were good versus which beans were bad.

During the test phase of the study, participants were asked to identify whether a bean was good or bad, and the researchers tallied how many times a participant correctly identified a good or a bad bean.

The results indicated that depressed and non-depressed students identified bad beans correctly approximately the same percentage of the time. Depressed students correctly identified bad beans 66% of the time, and non-depressed students identified bad beans 61% of the time.

However, non-depressed students correctly identified good beans significantly more often than depressed students did. More specifically, while non-depressed students correctly identified good beans 60% of the time, depressed students correctly identified good beans 49% of the time. The finding that depressed individuals seem to have a harder time learning positive information was further supported when the researchers analyzed the results of depressed students’ performances based on how depressed they were: mildly, moderately, or severely depressed. Severely depressed individuals correctly identified good beans less often than mildly depressed people.

The researchers say this study is unique because the computer game allowed them to learn about how people form attitudes about a new situation without interference from attitudes or knowledge about past experiences.

The researchers admit more research needs to be done in order to confirm that depressed people have a harder time learning positive information than non-depressed people, but this study seems to indicate this is the case.

They suggest therapists may want to help their depressed patients see and remember the positive aspects of situations during the therapeutic process.

Source:

Psych Central: Depressed Individuals Miss Out on Good Things in Life:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/03/19/depressed-individuals-miss-out-on-good-things-in-life/4837.html

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