DEPRESSIVE THINKING - SHIFTS IN CONSTRUCT ACCESSIBILITY OR IN SCHEMATIC MENTAL MODELS

Alternative explanations for depression-related changes in thinking were examined. Forty-one depressed patients and 40 controls completed sentence stems involving social approval or personal achievement such as ''If I could always be right then others would -------- me.'' The view that depressive thinking primarily reflects a generalized increase in accessibility of negative constructs predicts patients will give more negative completions (e.g., ''dislike''). Alternatively, depression could affect the interrelationships between constructs: Use in depression of schematic mental models implying closer dependence of personal worth-acceptance on success-approval predicts patients may give more positive completions (e.g., ''like''). Results supported the latter prediction and suggest that depressive thinking reflects changes in high-level mental models used to interpret experience.