DEPRESSIVES FUTURE-EVENT SCHEMAS AND THE SOCIAL INFERENCE PROCESS

Two studies examined depressed and nondepressed perceivers' characteri zations and thoughtful inferences about the behaviors of another perso n. In Study 1, depressed and nondepressed participants under a cogniti ve load or no load were asked to make either dispositional (ability) o r situational (task ease) inferences about a target's videotaped perfo rmance. When cognitive resources were limited, depressed compared with nondepressed individuals made more pessimistic characterizations. No depression-related differences were found when sufficient cognitive re sources were available for inferential correction. Study 2 provided ev idence that the depressed-nondepressed differences in characterization s could be accounted for by schema-based future-event expectancies (S. M. Andersen, L. A. Spielman, & J. A. Bargh, 1992). Results are examin ed in light of previous failures to find consistent differences as a f unction of level of depression in inferences about others.