The stability of mood and social perception measures in a sample of depressive in-patients

Forty depressives and 40 matched controls were compared in terms of a number of self-report variables and in terms of their descriptions and evaluations of both real-life and hypothetical social relationships. Clear differences between the two groups reveal poorer self-ratings in the depressive sample, together with a tendency to describe and to evaluate both real and imaginary relationships more negatively. A retest of the depressed patients at the time of discharge from hospital showed improvement only in the two depression measures and not in any of the other self-rating and perceptual measures used. The possibility is discussed that the perceptual variables are predisposing to depression rather than concomitant with it.