1. DEPRESSIVE REALISM AND THE OUTCOME DENSITY
BIAS: AN EXTENSION TO A REAL LIFE SETTING
Amy Walsh : MA Psychology
Supervisor: Rachel Msetfi

2. BACKGROUND
 Illusion of Control
 We believe we have control over things which
are unrelated to our actions.
 Positive Illusion
 Widely demonstrated in healthy individuals
(Jenkins & Ward,1965; Langer, 1975).
 We don’t see this IOC in individuals with
depression (Alloy & Abramson, 1979)
 Depressive realism- Depressed Individuals
are more accurate in judgments of control.
 Outcome Density Effect

3. HOW IS DEPRESSIVE REALISM STUDIED?
 Questionnaires (Dunning & Story, 1991), Dice rolling task (Presson &
Benassi, 2003), self evaluation of task performance (Lobitz & Post,
1979)judgements of their own accuracy (Stone, Dodrill, & 2001)
 Contingency judgement task is the most valid method
 Highly reliably, high internal validity, controllable
 However this is also its downfall
 No ecological validity and does not take account of context

4. IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT
 Theories of learning
 Rule Based
 Associative learning
Context is vital for both

5. EVIDENCE FOR THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT
 Length of trial intervals does not impact depressed participants (Msetfi et al.,
2005).
 Don’t take contextual information into account
 Vital for considered real life applications
 Attentional focus on context weakens depressive realism effects and
increases optimism (Msetfi, Brosnan, & Cavus, 2016).

6. BRINGING IT OUT OF THE LAB
 Context is vital
 The Lab context is
controlled and static
 In real life context is
continuously changing
 The App gives the
ecological validity to
contingency tasks

7. HOW DID WE DO THIS?
 N= 51
 61% Female
 Average age 22
 Range 18-39
 2 Conditions
 Low Outcome Density
 High Outcome Density
 Depressed and Non Depressed Participants
 BDI cut off of 5

8. GROUPS
Depressed Non-Depressed Total
Low OD 11 10 21
High OD 13 17 30
Total
24 27 51

9. RESULTS
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
DP-exp OD Action rate
Validity
Low OD HIgh OD

10. RESULTS
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
MeanControlRatings
Time
Action Ratings
Non-Depressed HighOD
Non-Depressed LowOD
Depressed HighOD
Depressed Low OD

11. CONCLUSIONS
 Outcome Density Effect
 Depression Effect
 Slightly different to what’s seen in lab setting
 Questions as why that might be
 Implicates how we think of people with depression

12. WHAT NEXT?
 Experiment 2
 Increasing salience to context
 Possible replication of Msetfi,
Brosnan, & Cavus, 2016 study.