title: The accuracy of self-monitoring and its relationship to self-focused attention in dysphoria and clinical depression.
abstract: The accuracy with which dysphoric (Study 1) and clinically depressed (Study 2) individuals make self-regulatory judgments about their own performance in the absence of external feedback and the extent to which this relates to trait self-focused attention (SFA) were examined. Relative to objective criteria, both dysphoric and depressed participants showed a positive judgment bias, overestimating the number of trials they had performed correctly. Relative to control participants, the dysphoric and depressed groups showed a reduction in the extent of this positive bias in that they judged error trials more accurately and correct trials less accurately. Although the dysphoric and depressed groups both reported elevated trait SFA, this did not correlate significantly with accuracy of self-judgment on the performance-monitoring task. Implications for self-regulation models of depression are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Emotion Research Group, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom. barney.dunn@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Barnaby D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Dunn
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dalgleish
authors.forename: Andrew D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Lawrence
authors.forename: Alan D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Ogilvie
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D012927:Social Control, Informal