Thought Sampling after Mood Induction in Depressed vs. Non-Depressed College Students

Abstract

This study combines a mood induction procedure with a thought sampling strategy to assess the effect of mood on spontaneous cognition in a sample of depressed and non-depressed undergraduates. A total of eighty-five Hofstra University psychology students completed the Beck Depression Inventory and then returned for a second experimental session two weeks later. After assigning depressed (BDI > 10) and non-depressed (BDI < 4) participants in equal numbers to sad and neutral mood induction conditions, the experimenter measured baseline mood and then showed either a sad or neutral video clip. After mood induction, participants were buzzed randomly for a fifteen-minute period and asked to speak their thoughts aloud. Results showed that across both conditions, participants' mood correlated with thought content at the end of the sampling period. Thought content correlated with BDI scores from two weeks earlier and depressed individuals had more overall negative thought content. In contrast to previous findings of mood congruency, thought content sampled immediately after mood induction was not congruent. Non-depressed individuals did not show evidence of mood repair in spontaneous thought content. Implications for multi-modal assessment of mood congruency are discussed.

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