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Cited by 1,692Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesDecision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser?

Alloy, Lauren B., Abramson, Lyn Y.·1979·Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
DOI 10.1037/0096-3445.108.4.441
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Abstract

How are humans' subjective judgments of contingencies related to objective contingencies? Work in social psychology and human contingency learning predicts that the greater the frequency of desired outcomes, the greater people's judgments of contingency will be. Second, the learned helplessness theory of depression provides both a strong and a weak prediction concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies. According to the strong prediction, depressed individuals should underestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. According to the weak prediction, depressed individuals merely should judge that there is a smaller degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes than nondepressed individuals should. In addition, the present investigation deduced a new strong prediction from the helplessness theory: Nondepressed individuals should overestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. In the experiments, depressed and nondepressed students were present with one of a series of problems varying in the actual degree of contingency. In each problem, subjects estimated the degree of contingency between their responses (pressing or not pressing a button) and an environmental outcome (onset of a green light). Performance on a behavioral task and estimates of the conditional probability of green light onset associated with the two response alternatives provided additional measures for assessing beliefs about contingencies. Depressed students' judgments of contingency were surprisingly accurate in all four experiments. Nondepressed students, on the other hand, overestimated the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes when noncontingent outcomes were frequent and/or desired and underestimated the degree of contingency when contingent outcomes were undesired. Thus, predictions derived from social psychology concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies were confirmed for nondepressed students but not for depressed students. Further, the predictions of helplessness theory received, at best, minimal support. The learned helplessness and self-serving motivational bias hypotheses are evaluated as explanations of the results. In addition, parallels are drawn between the present results and phenomena in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and animal learning. Finally, implications for cognitive illusions in normal people, appetitive helplessness, judgment of contingency between stimuli, and learning theory are discussed.

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  • Stress and affective dysregulation bias attributional style in depression and anxiety.

    “Such a mechanism may explain why stress and affective dysregulation bias attributional style in depression and anxiety.65”

    From Two prefrontal-subcortical circuits estimate controllability and reflect its impact on learning (2026) · cites this paper as [65]

  • Depressive realism should contribute functionally to the deconstrual of the cognitive sets and biases that maintain assimilative efforts, thus promoting the shift toward accommodation.

    “Thus, ''depressive realism'' (Alloy & Abramson, 1979) should contribute functionally to the deconstrual of the cognitive sets and biases that maintain assimilative efforts, thus promoting the shift toward accommodation.”

    From The Life-Course Dynamics of Goal Pursuit and Goal Adjustment: A Two-Process Framework (2002) · cites this paper as Alloy & Abramson, 1979

  • Self-protective processes are theorized to maintain favorable self-views and are broadly linked with improved well-being.

    “This collection of self-protective processes is theorized to maintain favorable self-views and is broadly linked with improved well-being (12).”

    From Development of self-protective biases in response to social evaluative feedback (2017) · cites this paper as [12]

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Related

Authors
Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y.
Affiliations
Northwestern University (US)
ORCID
Alloy, Lauren B.
Venue
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
1979
Volume
108
Issue
4
Pages
441-485
ISSN
  • 0096-3445 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-2222
DOI
10.1037/0096-3445.108.4.441
OpenAlex
W2022640694
Cited by
1,692
References
134
Citations by year
2026: 23 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 75 · 2019: 48 · 2018: 53 · 2017: 39 · 2016: 56 · 2015: 43 · 2014: 45 · 2013: 70 · 2012: 53
FWCI
24.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Journal of Experimental Psychology General (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
contingency judgment, depression, learned helplessness, conditional probability, self-serving bias, motivational bias, cognitive illusions, contingency learning
MeSH terms
Association Learning, Depression, Female, Humans, Judgment, Learning, Male, Motivation, Proactive Inhibition, Problem Solving

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