title: Depression and self-focused language in structured interviews with older men.
abstract: The association between depression and self-focused language has been found to varying extents across studies. The presence or absence of the association may depend on the communicative context. Based on Beck's depression model, a broad, evaluative self-focused question was predicted more likely to elicit a stronger association than a full interview containing a more heterogeneous question set of items. The spontaneous speech obtained during structured interviews of 26 depressed and nondepressed older men, an as-yet little studied population, was analyzed. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that association between self-focused language and depression was demonstrated in the target question but not across the entire interview. The results may explain some of the aforementioned discrepancies in prior studies.
authors.affiliation: University of California at Davis, USA. wjarrold@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jarrold
authors.forename: Harold S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Javitz
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Krasnow
authors.forename: Bart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Peintner
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.forename: Gary E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Swan
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mehl
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012016:Reference Values; D012649:Self Concept; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior