Sadder ≠ Wiser: Depressive Realism Is Not Robust to Replication (DRO)

The theory of depressive realism holds that depressed individuals are less prone to optimistic bias, and are thus more realistic, in assessing their control or performance. Since the theory was proposed 40 years ago, many innovations have been validated for testing cognitive accuracy, including improved measures of bias in perceived control and performance. We incorporate several of those innovations in a well-powered, pre-registered study designed to identify depressive realism. Amazon MTurk workers (N = 246) and undergraduate students (N = 134) completed a classic contingency task, an overconfidence task, and measures of mental health constructs, including depression and anxiety. We measured perceived control throughout the contingency task, allowing us to compare control estimates at the trial-level to estimates assessed at task conclusion. We found no evidence that depressive symptoms relate to illusory control or to overconfidence. Our results suggest that despite its popular acceptance, depressive realism is not replicable.

抑郁现实主义理论认为，抑郁个体较不易受到乐观偏差的影响，因此在进行自我控制或表现评估时更为现实。自该理论40年前被提出以来，许多旨在检验认知准确性的创新方法得到了验证，包括感知控制与表现偏差的改进测量。本研究纳入了其中一些创新，设计了一项具有充分功效且预先注册的研究，旨在识别抑郁现实主义。亚马逊 Mechanical Turk 上的工作者（N = 246）以及本科生（N = 134）完成了经典的条件任务、过度自信任务，以及包括抑郁和焦虑在内的心理健康结构测量。我们在整个条件任务中测量了感知控制，这使得我们能够将试验层面的控制估计与任务结束时的评估进行比较。我们发现，抑郁症状与错觉控制或过度自信无关。我们的结果表明，尽管抑郁现实主义得到了广泛的认可，但其可重复性并未得到证实。