Distortions of Memory in Depressed, Formerly Depressed, and Never Depressed College Students

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Abstract
Depressed, formerly depressed, and never depressed female college students were randomly assigned to success, failure, or neutral experiences on a sham measure of empathy ( ns = 12/cell). They then read descriptions of their supposed positive and negative intellectual and personality characteristics, and took a recognition memory test. Based on Beck's (1967) theory, it was predicted that depressed subjects would display negative biasing of memory after neutral or failure experiences and that the latent negative biases of the formerly depressed would be activated by failure. The predictions for depressed subjects were not confirmed. However, the memories of the formerly depressed for information about their intellectual qualities became negatively biased after failure. Beck's view that those predisposed to depression harbor latent negative cognitive biases received some support, but the results also indicated that his conception of global negative biasing of cognition during depression is over-simplified.