Depressive Diligence in Social Information Processing: Implications for Order Effects in Impressions and for Social Memory

Recent theorizing suggests that mild to moderate depressives often adopt an accuracy goal in thinking about others, causing them to exhibit heightened diligence in social information processing. Two studies, both using a methodology that has previously been shown to promote recency effects in impression judgments, were conducted to assess the consequences of this heightened diligence. In these studies, critical stimulus persons were characterized by sets of behaviors in which one behavior was discrepant with others in the set. The results showed that depressives' impression judgments were more sensitive to the placement of the discrepant information (e.g., whether it was first or last in the set) than nondepressives' judgments, an outcome that is consistent with depressives' heightened diligence. Data collected in Study 2 revealed no recall differences between depressives and nondepressives, suggesting that heightened diligence does not necessarily translate into enhanced memory.