The perception of performance in stress: the utilisation of cognitive facts by nondepressed and depressed students

Three experiments are reported in which expectancies about performance in stressful conditions by nondepressed and depressed nonclinical populations were examined. The first experiment was concerned with estimates of either errors or response rates made in advance, with regard to the likely competence level of a (hypothetical) person allegedly working in conditions of either loud noise, fatigue, sleep loss, social stress, or incentive. Nondepressed subjects as well as depressed subjects provided negative expectancies. The second experiment involved obtaining an estimate of personal competence in conditions where subjects were instructed that personal performance on the task would be required after the estimate had been provided. Nondepressed subjects differed from depressed subjects in that the estimates of the former were less negative in terms of the magnitude of the estimates provided. A third experiment was designed to see whether the negative expectancies about performance in stress exhibited both by nondepressed and by depressed subjects would be used in making allowances for the competence of a typist on the basis of a typescript allegedly produced under high noise conditions. An unexpected effect was that depressed subjects judged the typist more harshly and failed to make allowance for adverse working conditions in the way that nondepressed subjects did. The results are discussed in terms of the implications for understanding cognitive factors in depression.