A comparison of self-devaluation and somatic suggestion content in depressive mood manipulation

The Velten Mood Induction Procedure (VMIP), often used to manipulate depressive mood, has its effectiveness attributed to the self-devaluative content of its statements; this finding supports cognitive theories of depression. Recent research has suggested that somatic content is more important than self-devaluation content in producing depressive mood variations. To study this using the VMIP, a neutral condition and two modified depression conditions were used: Somatic and self-devaluation (N = 302). The results indicate that self-devaluative statements resulted in significantly more depressed affect than neutral Ss, but no more than somatic statements; this latter group, however, did not differ from neutral Ss. The results of the previous research indicating the importance of the somatic suggestion manipulations as having more influence than negative self-evaluative statements is questioned.