Journal of Abnormal Psychology

1979, Vol. 88, No. 6, 611-619

Assessment of Cognitive Bias in Depression

Susan Krantz and Constance Hammen
University of California, Los Angeles
A procedure is described for the assessment of depressive distortion, a construct
hypothesized by Beck to be a central mechanism in the cause and maintenance
of dysphoria and other symptoms of depression. The questionnaire assesses in-
dividuals' interpretations of events depicted in brief stories and measures pres-
ence of a tendency to select the most negative, pessimistic, or self-deprecating
response options. The psychometric properties of the procedure are reported,
and various validity issues are addressed. There is a consistent relation between
scores on an inventory of depressive symptoms and depressive-distortion scores
across samples of college students, outpatients in therapy for depression, and
inpatients. From test-retest data, it appears that individuals with high scores
on both depression and distortion had the highest levels of depression 8 weeks
after initial testing. Although the results confirm Beck's hypothesis of a char-
acteristic cognitive bias in depression, further research is needed to analyze the
role of bias in maintaining depressed mood and to further clarify the nature
of the bias.

The last 15 years have witnessed a surge of anticipation of performance or reinforcement.

interest in cognitive models of depression. The
work of Aaron Beck (1967, 1976) has been
especially influential. Beck views depression
as essentially a disorder of thinking rather than
affect and has described the "cognitive triad"
characteristic of depressed persons. This triad
consists of negative
⾃我
and pessimistic
環境
ways of
construing the self, the environment, and the
未來
future. He postulates that these negative con-
structions set the stage for the development of
depression and serve to perpetuate depressed
mood. However, efforts to assess cognitions
and to test their hypothesized relation to
depressive mood have lagged behind the
theoretical efforts.
Recent attempts to assess depressive cogni-
tions may be categorized into two basic types.
One method compares depressed and non-
depressed subjects' perception, recall, or
We are grateful to Armand Alkire of the Sepulveda
Veterans Administration Hospital for his assistance in
facilitating collection of data from the inpatient sample
and to Aaron Beck and Susan Cochran for their com-
ments on an earlier draft of this article.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Constance
Hammen, Department of Psychology, University of
California, Los Angeles, California, 90024.
Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0021-843X/79/8806-0611$00.75
Studies using this type of methodology have
found that relatively depressed compared with
nondepressed subjects underestimate their
number of correct responses (Wener & Rehm,
1975) and recall more negatively reinforced
and less positively reinforced trials (Buchwald,
1977; De Monbreun & Craighead, 1977;
Nelson & Craighead, 1977). Similarly, studies
of the learned helplessness model of depression
have made inferences about the perception of
contingency by asking subjects to indicate their
expectations of success on subsequent trials.
For instance, a study by Miller and Seligman
(1973) suggests that nondepressed as compared
to depressed subjects show a greater change in
their expectancy of success in skilled tasks,
but not chance tasks.
A second type of methodology used in as-
sessing depressive cognitions involves self-
rating scales. For instance, Hammen and
Krantz (1976) used self-esteem ratings to
assess the self-evaluative aspect of depressive
cognitions. They found that depressed women
were significantly more self-critical than non-
depressed women. Furthermore, failure feed-
back intensified self-critical cognitions in
depressed women, and success feedback failed

611
612 SUSAN KRANTZ AND CONSTANCE HAMMEN

to minimize these cognitions compared to a sions is beyond the scope of this investigation,
no-feedback control. Similarly, Nelson (1977) data are presented on the covariation of depres-
found moderate positive correlations between sive distortion and severity of depression.
scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and Samples of nondepressed and relatively de-
adherence to certain "irrational" beliefs hy- pressed college students, participants in an
pothesized by Albert Ellis (1962) to be central outpatient intervention program for depres-
to maladaptive behaviors. sion, and depressed inpatients were tested.
These studies all made important contribu- Finally, analyses of the relation between level
tions in translating Beck's concepts into opera- of depression and depressive distortion over
tional terms and then demonstrating a rela- time were undertaken to attempt to answer
tion between cognition and mood. Relatively preliminary questions about the possible
little work has been done, however, to directly maintaining role of distortions in the perpetua-
test one of Beck's central themes concerning tion of depressive affect and related symptoms.
the biased or unrealistic quality of depressive
cognitions. As a preliminary step, it would seem
useful to try to systematically document Method
Beck's clinical observations that depressed 1
individuals characteristically engage in dis- Questionnaire Development
torted interpretations of circumstances such as 詮釋
In order to assess individuals' interpretations of
selective abstraction, arbitrary inference, over- events, short descriptions were developed of potentially
generalization, and other errors. It is also im- problematic situations common to college students.
portant to more directly test his assertion that Following each story were four multiple-choice ques-
tions (with the exception of one story, which had three
these biased cognitions are substantially im- questions) pertaining to the central character's feelings,
plicated in the development and perpetuation thoughts, and expectations. Each question had four
of depression. However, no easily administered response options, constructed along two dichotomous
method of obtaining an individual measure of and crossed dimensions of depressed versus nonde-
tendency to display the cognitive distortions pressed in tone and distorted versus nondistorted in
terms of logical inference based on the information
posited to be the central features of depression provided in the story. Thus, following each question
currently exists. Weintraub, Segal, and Beck was one depressed-distorted option, one depressed-
(1974) briefly reported an independently de- nondistorted option, one nondepressed-distorted op-
veloped questionnaire assessment of depressive tion, and one nondepressed-nondistorted option. These
two different dimensions were used to evaluate dys-
distortion, but it did not differentiate dysphoric phoric content both with and without distorted form,
cognitions that were realistic from unrealistic and vice versa.
dysphoric cognitions, and issues of its validity Subjects were asked to choose the option that best
and psychometric properties apparently were represented their own response to the situations por-
描寫 trayed in the stories as if they were the central charac-
not pursued. ter. It should be noted that the dimension of depressed
The present study, therefore, describes the versus nondepressed tone as used in this questionnaire
development of a questionnaire measure of refers to the presence or absence of unhappiness and
Beck's hypothesized construct of depressive dysphoria and not the clinical disorder with its as-
distortion. The goal was to develop a measure sociated severely painful feelings, The distorted versus
nondistorted dimension denotes the presence or absence
of sufficient utility that it could be used as a of interpretations that are unwarranted in light of the
research instrument for the investigation of available information.
mechanisms of depression and of individual Thus, the construct of depressive distortion includes,
differences in onset and persistence of depres- for example, exaggeration or misinterpretation of events
sion, and as a possible outcome measure in so as to emphasize negative outcomes, and the in-
terpretation involves an inference that is not accurate
intervention studies. based on the information provided. As an example, in
In addition to analyses of the psychometric one story Peggy (or Paul) was depicted as a member
properties of the questionnaire, data are also of an organization who was encouraged by friends to
presented that bear on the occurrence of run for the presidency of the organization. She (he)
depressive distortions across various depressed
groups. Although the complex issue of con- 1
Copies of the questionnaire are available from the
tinuity in the diagnostic spectrum of depres- second author.
 DEPRESSIVE BIAS 613

eventually lost the election. The subject was instructed
to "put yourself in Peggy's (Paul's) place, and try to
imagine as vividly as you can what she (he) thought
and felt." The first item was "When you first heard
you'd lost, you immediately":
1. feel bad and imagine I've lost by a landslide
(depressive-distorted).
2. Shrug it off as unimportant (nondepressive-
distorted).
3. feel sad and wonder what the total counts were
(depressive-nondistorted).
4. shrug it off, feeling I tried as hard as I could
(nondepressive-nondistorted).
An effort to construct the depressed-distorted re-
sponse options to depict equal numbers of categories of
such logical errors as arbitrary inference, selective
abstraction, overgeneralization, and maximization of
negative or minimization of positive proved unsuc-
cessful. Independent judges were unable to reliably
separate one such response type from another. How-
ever, the distortion responses are all examples of some
type of distortion described by Beck.
An initial set of eight stories and questions was de-
veloped by the authors and submitted for independent
analysis to a group of clinical psychology graduate
student judges unaware of the purpose of the task.
Their job was to rate whether responses exemplified
depressed or nondepressed tone and distorted or non-
distorted conclusion. On the basis of their ratings,
stories and questions were modified as necessary, and
the resulting set was evaluated by 10 additional grad-
uate student judges. Percentage of agreement across
judges as to depressed or nondepressed and distorted
or nondistorted was tabulated, and only those items
that achieved at least 80% agreement on both di-
mensions were retained in the final version. The final
set contains six stories and a total of 23 items that
reflect a high degree of interjudge consensus on content
validity for the scoring categories.
Groups Tested
Distortion questionnaires and Beck Depression In-
ventory scores were collected from the following groups:
Large student samples. Group 1 consisted of 107
men and 105 women undergraduates tested in 1976, and
Group 2 consisted of 315 undergraduates—117 men
and 198 women tested in the autumn of 1977. All stu-
dents were volunteers from an introductory psychology
subject pool; their mean age was 18 years. In Group 1,
approximately half of the subjects received the ques-
tionnaires with male story characters, and the other
half received stories with female figures in order to learn
if gender of characters affected responding.
Test-retest samples. A group of 19 depressed and 21
nondepressed subjects was randomly selected from
Group 1 and retested at 4-5 weeks. The 315 students in
Group 2 above were retested on the questionnaires ap-
proximately 8 weeks later.
Hammen and Krantz (1976) experimental sample. In
the context of an experiment on responses to success
and failure reported elsewhere, 32 depressed and 33 non-
depressed (using Beck Depression Inventory scores of
10 as a cutoff) women students completed the ques-
tionnaire. They had been recruited as volunteers from

Table 1
Mean Scores for Depression and Depressive Distortion

Depressive
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) distortions
Sample Category M SD M SD
Student Sample 1 (N = 212) Depressed (BDI > 9) 11.7 5.1 2.15 2.3
Nondepressed (BDI < 9) 2.3 1.7 1.56 2.2
Student Sample 2 (N = 315) Depressed (BDI > 9) 13.1 4.8 3.02 2.5
Nondepressed (BDI < 9) 3.8 2.4 1.71 1.9
Hammen & Krantz (1976)
experiment (N = 67) Depressed (BDI > 9) 14.5 5.7 4.55 3.2
Nondepressed (BDI < 9) 3.0 2.4 2.41 2.7
Hammen & Peters (1978) role
play (N = 63) Depressed role players — — 3.68 5.17
Nondepressed role players — —- 1.13 2.14
Clinical intervention sample
(GlasB, 1978) (N - 29) Depressed 20.4 7.9 4.32 3.53
Nondepressed
Veterans Administration Hospital
inpatients (N = 20) Depressed 28.2 9.5 7.0 4.4
Nondepressed 10.8 7.9 1.5 2.0
 614 SUSAN KRANTZ AND CONSTANCE HAMMEN
the introductory psychology subject pool for what was
labeled as an experiment on "personality and thera-
peutic functioning."
Ham/men and Peters (1978) depression role-playing
experiment. In the course of a study described else-
where, student volunteers from the subject pool who
had been instructed to enact a depressed or nonde-
pressed role in an interaction completed the
questionnaire.
Clinically depressed intervention sample. Volunteers
in a six-session brief depression intervention study
based on reduction of learned helplessness (Glass, 1978)
completed the distortion questionnaire prior to treat-
ment, after treatment, and at a 1-month follow-up.
Participants had been screened (on the basis of a
clinical interview) from self-referred applicants for an
experimental program for problems with depression.
Individuals were included if they met the research
diagnostic criteria for a major depressive disorder
(Feighner, et al., 1972). Persons with bipolar disorders,
those whose depression seemed secondary to other
psychiatric or medical problems, and those currently
receiving psychotropic medication were referred for
treatment elsewhere. Of the final sample, 14 were men,
IS were women, and their mean age was 26 years.
Inpatient sample. Data were collected from 10
depressed and 10 nondepressed male psychiatric in-
patients at a metropolitan Veterans Administration
Hospital. All patients who were admitted to one of four
wards over a period of several months were evaluated
for suitability. The final depressed sample included
those who met the research diagnostic criteria (Feighner
et al., 1972) for major or minor depressive disorders,
and the nondepressed patient sample contained a
mixture of diagnoses other than depression as a primary
or secondary diagnosis, including schizophrenia, charac-
ter disorder, and hypomanic phase of bipolar affective
disorder. All of the participants had to be able to give
informed consent. All of the nondepressed and seven of
the depressed subjects were receiving psychotropic
medication. The depressed and nondepressed groups of
inpatients did not differ in age (M = 44 years), length
of current hospitalization (approximately 4 weeks), or
other potentially relevant demographic characteristics.
The questionnaire content was altered slightly so
that the settings depicting college situations were re-
placed by settings more relevant to the patients, such
as work or hospital.
The means and standard deviations of scores on the
distortion questionnaire and the Beck Depression In-
ventory are presented in Table 1.
Results
Questionnaire Characteristics
Depressive-distorted scores. In the results
that follow, the analyses consider only depres-
sive-distortion scores. Nondepressive-distor-
tion (unrealistically positive responses) were
quite rare in all samples except the nonde-
pressed hospitalized sample, whereas nonde-
pressive-nondistorted responses were the most
frequent, as expected.
In terms of general descriptive characteris-
tics, depressive-distorted scores in the large
student samples ranged from 0 to 14, with a
mean score of 1.85 (SD = 2.25), in Group 1;
and from 0 to 11, with a mean of 1,95
(SD = 2.06), in Group 2. Thus, in normal,
generally nondepressed student samples, de-
pressive distortions or biases were relatively
rare, and the distributions of scores were posi-
tively skewed.
In the clinically depressed intervention
sample of depressed volunteers, the range was
1-14, with a mean of 4.32 (SD = 3.53), and
the depressed inpatient sample had a mean of
7.00 (SD = 4.37).
Analyses of sex differences. In a 2 X 2
analysis of variance of sex differences in the
subject or story character based on Large
Sample Group 1, there were no significant
main effects or interactions of the factors. Thus,
depressive-distorted responding was not more
prevalent in men or women, and the gender of
the character of the story did not signifi-
cantly affect degree of depressive-distorted
responding.
Analysis of story effects. Three of the six
stories in the questionnaire have mainly social-
interpersonal themes, and three have pre-
dominantly achievement-competence themes.
Analyses of possible differences between stories
in their likelihood of eliciting depressive distor-
tion were undertaken in order to clarify the
possibility that the test stimuli contributed
more to distorted responding than did charac-
teristics of the cognitive processes of individ-
uals. Based on the analysis of results from
Large Sample Group 1, there were no differ-
ences in distortion levels elicited by each story,
nor between interpersonal and achievement
themes. Nor were there subject sex differences
in depressive-distortion scores elicited by each
story. Thus, story theme did not appear to be
a critical determinant of depressive-distortion
level,
Reliability
Internal consistency. The coefficient of in-
ternal consistency of the depressive-distorted
responses on the scale was computed by the
 DEPRESSIVE BIAS 615

KR-20 formula (see Guilford, 1954). The Table 2

coefficient was calculated for the largest stu- Item-Total Correlations
dent sample, Group 2 (N = 315), as .62. The
second largest sample, Group 1 (N = 212), Story no. Question no. ra
was used as a cross-validation sample and 1 1 .42
yielded a coefficient of internal consistency of 2 .48
.69. Item-total correlations (using a point- 3 .31
biserial correlation procedure appropriate to
the form of the data) based on Group 2 of the 2 1 .39
2 .49
large student sample ranged from .12 to .5, and 3 .19*
the mean correlation of the 23 items with total 4 .31
scores was .34. Twenty-one of the 23 item-total
correlations were significant at or beyond the 3 1 .51
2 .41
.01 level, as shown in Table 2. 3 .48
The coefficients of internal consistency were 4 .35
only moderate and possibly reflect the lack of
homogeneity of the items (e.g., selective ab- 4 1 .12 ns
straction, arbitrary inference, and the like) as 2 .19*
3 .35
well as the short length of the questionnaire 4 .52
(23 items). Although the reliability of the in-
strument seems to be adequate for research S 1 .17*
purposes, the construct of depressive distortion 2 .31
3 .12 ns
itself is heterogeneous and requires further 4 .48
clarification.
Test-retest reliability. The simple test- 6 1 .34
retest correlations between depressive-distor- 2 .28
tion scores at different points reflect a sub- 3 .30
4 .33
stantial degree of stability. In the Large Sample
Group 2 of undergraduates, the test-re test cor- Note. The five items with correlations not significant
relation was .60, (p < .001) for 8 weeks. A at p < .001 may be omitted for improved internal
randomly selected group of students from Large consistency when only the depressive-distortion
Sample Group 1 who scored above 9 on the scores are to be used.
• All correlations are significant at p < .001 unless
Beck Depression Inventory (n = 19) and a otherwise noted.
randomly selected group who scored below 9 *p <.01.
(n — 21) were retested at 4-5 weeks. The
test-retest correlation of depressive-distortion
scores was .48 (p < .001). sive-distorted replies. Table 1 presents some
Although depressive-distortion scores ap- samples.
peared to be relatively stable, they nevertheless In the original Hammen and Krantz (1976)
seemed to vary according to changes in mood experimental sample, depressed women had
level. This information is discussed in the significantly greater depressive-distortion
validity section. scores than did nondepressed women, F(l, 61)
= 8.24, p < .01. Large Sample Group 2, using
a similar Beck cutoff score of 10 to designate
Validity the relatively more depressed students, also
revealed a significant difference between de-
Depressive-distortion scores and level of depres- pressed and nondepressed groups, /(232)
sion. Of critical interest are relations between = 3.91, p < .001. The overall correlation be-
depressed mood and degree of depressive-dis- tween the variables was .39 (p < .001). In
torted responding. Data from all the samples Large Sample Group 1, a simple median split
strongly support the hypothesized tendency of on Beck scores was used to divide subjects, and
more depressed persons to give more depres- greater depressive-distortion scores were found
616 SUSAN KRANTZ AND CONSTANCE HAMMEN
in the relatively more depressed group, F(l,
208) = 4.68, p < .05.
The clinically depressed intervention sample
(Glass, 1978), with its relatively restricted
range of Beck and depressive-distortion scores
prior to treatment, showed a degree of correla-
tion between the two variables that approached
significance (r = .33, p < .10). At the end of
the treatment, the correlation was significant
(r = .46, p = .01).
When students were given instructions to
role play a depressed person in an experiment
on interactions with depressed and nonde-
pressed role players (Hammen & Peters, 1978),
they were asked to complete the questionnaire
as they imagined a depressed student would
answer. Depressed-role players gave a signifi-
cantly higher proportion of depressive-distor-
tion responses than did students asked to re-
spond in a nondepressed fashion, F(l, 49)
= 5.46, p < .05. It should be noted that the
students were not given information about
depressive cognitions as such.
Finally, comparisons between depressed and
nondepressed psychiatric inpatients revealed
a significant difference in depressive-distortion
scores in the predicted direction, /(18) = 3.63,
p < .01. It is of interest to note that although
the nondepressed psychiatric patients had
mildly elevated Beck scores, their depressive-
distortion scores were quite low, perhaps in-
dicating that depressive distortions are more
specific to clinical depression than is intensity
of depressed mood.
In sum, across every sample tested—in-
cluding college students, a clinically depressed
intervention sample, and inpatient samples—
the relatively more depressed persons had
significantly higher depressive-distortion
scores.
Relation between changes in mood and depres-
sive-distortion scores. As noted previously, de-
pressive-distortion scores were relatively stable
over time; nevertheless, they appeared to vary
according to changes in mood level. The theory
of the role of cognitive distortion in depression
leads to the hypothesis that negatively biased
thinking processes serve to perpetuate negative
mood. Therefore, it would be predicted that
higher levels of depressive distortion would be
associated with more persistent depression over
time. Also, decreases in levels of depressive
distortion should accompany reduced levels of
depressed mood.
Within the randomly selected subset of
Sample 1 that was retested after 4 weeks
(» = 40), a planned comparison between sub-
jects whose Beck depression scores increased
and those whose Beck scores decreased over
time revealed a borderline significant difference
in depressive-distortion scores at retesting,
/(37) = 1.62, p «= .06, one-tailed. Persons who
became more depressed showed little change in
depressive-distortion scores, but those who
became less depressed decreased in depressive-
distortion level.
In the clinically depressed intervention
sample, the treatment and waiting-list control
groups were initially equal both in levels of
depression and depressive distortion. At the
end of treatment, the treatment group de-
creased significantly in level of depression com-
pared to the waiting-list control group, and
there was a corresponding significant difference
between the groups on depressive-distortion
scores, 1(22) = 2.51, p < .05, reflecting the
treatment group's reduction in depressive
distortion.
In the clinically depressed intervention
sample, persons who distorted relatively more
prior to treatment (scores of 3 or more) were
compared on posttreatment depression scores
with those who distorted less. Those who dis-
torted relatively more prior to treatment were
somewhat more depressed following treatment
than those who distorted less, although the
effect was nonsignificant. At the follow-up
testing 1 month later, Beck Depression In-
ventory scores were significantly greater for
those whose distortion scores were initially
higher, t(U) = 2.03, p < .05, one-tailed.
Although the results are suggestive, it is not
possible to draw unambiguous conclusions
about the maintaining role of depressive-dis-
tortion in depression because of the strong
tendency of distorters to be relatively more
depressed than nondistorters. The most ac-
curate statement of the patterns observed is
that the most depressed persons (who also
distort) tend to remain relatively more de-
pressed over time. Depression level and depres-
sive-distortion level both appear to contribute
to persisting depression. Further research is
needed to investigate the possibility that the
 DEPRESSIVE BIAS
level of depressive distortion contributes to the
stability of depression.
Concurrent and discriminant validity. It was
anticipated that a measure of depressive dis-
tortions would have a moderate positive cor-
relation with scores on Byrne's (1964) Repres-
sion-Sensitization (R-S) scale. Although vastly
different in concept from the current question-
naire, "sensitizers" could be expected to share
such characteristics as acknowledgment of
negative experiences and pessimistic and self-
critical responses with depressed persons. As
predicted, when the R-S scale was administered
to subjects in the Large Sample Group 1 study,
the correlation between the two scores was
.31 (p < ,001), indicating some similarity be-
tween " sensitization" and depressive distor-
tion. At the time the present measure of
depressive distortion was developed, there
were no other established instruments that
assessed the construct. Work is currently
under way, however, to assess the correspond-
ence between the current measure and a
measure of dysfunctional attitudes (Weissman
& Beck, Note 1).
Although the present measure correlates
strongly with self-report measures of depression
such as the Beck Depression Inventory and
moderately with the R-S scale, it seems im-
portant to question whether the depressive-
distorted responses assessed by the present
procedures are in fact unique to depression
rather than characteristic of emotional upset
in general. One approach to answering this
question was to learn whether depressive-
distorted responses were more associated with
depressed mood than with anxiety, anger, or
other mood disturbance. The subjects in Large
Sample Group 2 were administered the Profile
of Mood States (McNair, Lorr, & Droppelman,
1971), which yields scores for factors of depres-
sion, anxiety-tension, anger, confusion, fatigue,
and vigor. Correlations between factor scores
and depressive distortion ranged from .33 for
depression to .13 for fatigue. Although depres-
sion had the highest correlation, all the r values
were significant at least at the p < .05 level.
One difficulty, however, is the high intercor-
relation between factors in our sample (e.g.,
depression with anxiety-tension, r — .69; and
depression with anger, r = .72). Therefore,
analyses were undertaken to correlate each
617
mood factor score with depressive-distortion
scores when the effects of the other mood states
were controlled. The resulting partial correla-
tions suggested that only depression (r = .15,
p < .01) and vigor (r = -.11, p < .05) were
related to depressive-distortion scores.
Discussion
The psychometric properties of the measure
of cognitive bias in depression seem adequate
to warrant its use in further construct valida-
tion research. The measure has moderate in-
ternal consistency, correlates positively with a
true-false measure of sensitization, and does
not appear to be associated with disturbed
mood states such as anxiety, anger, and con-
fusion except as they correlate highly with
depressed mood. The measure reliably dis-
tinguishes relatively depressed and nonde-
pressed groups, including mild and clinical
levels of depression, and also seems sensitive to
changes in mood level within individuals.
Nevertheless, not all depressed individuals
showed biased thinking and not all biased re-
sponding occurred in the presence of depres-
sion. Thus, the instrument seems to tap an
individual difference that could have utility in
the study of the occurrence and mechanism of
depression and as an outcome measure in
intervention studies.
In addition to their utility in assessing de-
pression, the results lend support to Beck's
(1967, 1976) emphasis on the cognitive aspects
of depression. The instrument specifically taps
a biased manner of evaluating situations that
emphasize negative, self-critical, or pessimistic
interpretations that are not warranted by the
events themselves. The items that assess de-
pressive bias were constructed to reflect such
errors in logical processing of information as
artibrary inference, overgeneralization, maxi-
mization of negative outcomes, and the like.
As such, the items are a mixture of causal at-
tributions for events, predictions of conse-
quences, and inferences about others' current
feelings and attitudes. The heterogeneity of the
content of the items presents a need for
theoretical refinements but nevertheless seems
reflective of the heterogeneity in the current
state of theory about the role of cognitions in
depression. In the same vein, it is important
to be clear that the current instrument repre-
618 SUSAN KRANTZ AND CONSTANCE HAMMEN
sents only one method of conceptualizing and
assessing distortions. The Jones Irrational
Beliefs Test (Nelson, 1977) and the Dysfunc-
tional Attitudes Scale (Weissman & Beck,
Note 1) represent additional approaches to
gauging cognitions associated with depression.
The depression-inducing or -maintaining
functions of depressive bias remain unclear at
the present time. Results from the studies that
assessed depressive bias at two points in time
found that initial high levels of both depressed
mood and bias were associated with persistence
of depression and that mood and depressive
bias were at least moderately correlated. It may
be speculated that current mood and current
biases have reciprocal effects on each other and
additive effects in maintaining depression. It
might be speculated further that depression
without depressive bias is relatively more
benign than depression with bias, and that
depressive bias in the absence of depression
denotes a state of vulnerability to develop de-
pression in the presence of a personally mean-
ingful loss or failure experience (e.g., Beck &
Rush, in press). The present instrument may
have some utility in the pursuit of such
questions.
It should be noted that errors in the in-
terpretation of information are not unique to
depression. Ross (1977), for example, provides
a review describing a variety of interpretive
errors made by normal subjects in a variety of
contexts, and stimulating analyses and re-
search are under way to explore such behaviors
(e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Smith & Miller,
1978). The present set of studies, however,
shows that persons who are depressed are
unique in their selective use of certain types of
errors as described by Beck (1967, 1976) in
previous anecdotal reports. These findings were
consistent across all samples regardless of
whether depression was defined as a relatively
normal variation in mood, a moderately in-
tense but not incapacitating disturbance, or a
severe clinical disorder. Assessing depression
by self-report measures such as the Beck
Depression Inventory or by clinical observa-
tion did not affect results, either. Additional
research is under way to attempt further
specification of characteristic cognitive biases
in depression and their potential role in the
maintenance of depressed mood.
Reference Note
1. Weissman, A., & Beck, A. T. Development and valida-
tion of the dysfunctional attitude scale. Paper presented
at the meeting of the Association for the Advance-
ment of Behavior Therapy, Chicago, November
1978.
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Received February 26, 1979
Revision received April 30, 1979 •