of words (such as train, ice ) and asked to recall a real-life experience each
word brought to mind. For example, a client might describe a train ride to
visit her favorite aunt or a time she missed a train. Clients were tested twice,
once when they were feeling particularly depressed and once when they were
less depressed. As shown in Figure 16.7, most of the memories recalled during
the depressed period were unhappy ones. However, when clients were less de-
pressed, they recalled happier experiences. Presumably the depressive schemas
were activated more when the clients ’depression levels were higher. A similar
pattern is found when depressed people are asked to think about the future.
Depressed individuals in one study could more easily come up with reasons
something bad is likely to happen to them someday than could nondepressedparticipants (Vaughn & Weary, 2002).
Because depressed people filter information through a depressive schema,
they also tend to interpret ambiguous information in the most negative lightpossible. When depressed people consider their performances, they tend to
dwell on what they did wrong and fail to give themselves enough credit for
what they did right (Crowson & Cromwell, 1995; Moretti et al., 1996).Participants in one study were given the choice of looking at either the favor-
able or unfavorable scores from a battery of tests they had taken (Giesler,
Josephs, & Swann, 1996). Eighty-two percent of the depressed participants
chose the unfavorable feedback, significantly more than the nondepressed
participants. Thus, if an instructor tells a depressed student he did well on
five essay answers but was a little weak on one, the student will most likely
30405060Percentage of Recalled Experiences
When More
DepressedWhen Less
DepressedHappy Experiences
Unhappy Experiences
FIGURE 16.7 Percentages of Happy and Unhappy Experiences Recalled
Source: From “Diurnal variation in clinical depression and accessibility of memories of positive and negative
experiences, ”by D. M. Clark and J. D. Teasdale, Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 1982, 91, 87 –95.
Reprinted by permission of the American Psychological Association.448 CHAPTER 16 The Cognitive Approach