Is depression associated with reduced optimistic belief updating?

ABSTRACT: When asked to evaluate their probability of experiencing a negative life event, healthy individuals update their beliefs more following good news than bad. This is referred to as optimistic belief updating. By contrast, individuals with depression update their beliefs by a similar amount, showing reduced optimism. We conducted the first independent replication of this effect and extended this work to examine whether reduced optimistic belief updating in depression also occurs for positive life events. Replicating previous research, healthy and depression groups differed in belief updating for negative events (β = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.24, 1.18). Whereas healthy participants updated their beliefs more following good news than bad, individuals experiencing depression lacked this bias. Howev

SUBMITTER: Hobbs C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8808098 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature