The processing of social information by mildly and moderately dysphoric college students

Two experiments are reported in which dysphoric and nondysphoric subjects were presented (in an acquaintanceship paradigm) with a standardized social communication that contained positive, negative, and neutral information about the speaker, and positive and negative impressions that the speaker had presumably formed about the subject. Groups differed in their recall of evaluative information about themselves, with moderately dysphoric subjects displaying poorer recall. Groups did not differ in their recall of information about the speaker. Moderately dysphoric subjects also displayed relatively negative appraisals of how they thought the speaker perceived them. The results are discussed as being partially inconsistent with cognitive theories of depression, and paradigmatic differences with prior studies are reviewed.