Adaptive social reasoning in depressed mood and depressive vulnerability

Abstract

In this study we evaluate the evolutionary hypothesis that depressed states are associated with more adaptive reasoning about social risks, such as defeat or rejection. A total of 78 women were administered one of two mood inductions (depressed vs. neutral), followed by four Wason selection reasoning tasks (truth-detection, cheater-detection, and two social risk tasks addressing attachment and social competition risks). Those in the depressed mood condition gave significantly more correct responses on a task requiring participants to reason about social competition. There were no significant differences on performance for the other reasoning tasks between the two mood induction conditions. F..