Completing Coyne's cycle: Dysphorics' ability to detect deception

We tested the prediction, derived from Coyne's (1976b) interpersonal model of depression, that dysphoric individuals would be more sensitive than nond ysphoric individuals to false reassurances and phoniness. In Part I of a tw o-part study, dysphoric and nondysphoric individuals watched videotapes of discussants talking about paintings they liked and disliked with an art stu dent who had created some of the paintings herself. As predicted, the dysph orics were more accurate than the nondysphorics at discerning when the disc ussants really did like the paintings only when the discussions were about disliked paintings that were the art student's own work. The Part 2 stimuli were audiotaped lies and truths conveyed by men and women to attractive sa me-sex and opposite-sex targets. The dysphorics tended to be more accurate than the nondysphorics at identifying the truths and lies told to opposite- sex targets, and they were significantly more accurate at identifying the o pposite-sex communications than the same-sex ones. (C) 1999 Academic Press.