Media release

From: The Royal Society

Is depression associated with reduced optimistic belief updating?

Royal Society Open Science

People with depression expect to experience negative events. But how are these expectations sustained? Replicating previous research, we found that people with depression lack optimistic biases seen in the general population. Whereas healthy participants changed their expectations more after receiving good versus bad news, participants with depression changed their expectations to a similar amount irrespective of whether they’d received good or bad news. We also extended previous research to examine positive life events. Whilst individuals with depression expected to experience fewer positive events, they did not differ from healthy volunteers in how they then changed these expectations.