These pages have been created by William MacLachlan , all rights reserved.
A study explored depressed-nondepressed differences in impression
formation. From S.T. Fiske and S.L. Neuberg's (1990) model of
impression formation, mildly depressed perceivers were hypothesized
to engage in more piecemeal processing when forming an impression
of a target other, even when nondepressed perceivers would typically
use less effortful categorical processing. With an idiographic
technique designed by M. Pavelchak (1989), depressed Ss were shown
to use trait attributes in evaluating a person, even when induced
to categorize the individual. Nondepressed Ss relied on category
information when available, replicating Pavelchak's study. Depressed
Ss' results are interpreted as arising from a motivation to engage
in effortful analysis of social information, stemming from feelings
of lack of control over life events.
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