Jarrold William, Javitz Harold S, Krasnow Ruth, Peintner Bart, Yeh Eric, Swan Gary E, Mehl Matthias. Depression and self-focused language in structured interviews with older men. Psychological reports, vol. 109, no. 2, pp. 686-700, 2011.
Summary
The association between depression and self-focused language has been found to varying extents across studies. The presence or absence of the association may depend on the communicative context. Based on Beck’s depression model, a broad, evaluative self-focused question was predicted more likely to elicit a stronger association than a full interview containing a more heterogeneous question set of items. The spontaneous speech obtained during structured interviews of 26 depressed and nondepressed older men, an as-yet little studied population, was analyzed. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that association between
self-focused language and depression was demonstrated in the target question but not across the entire interview. The results may explain some of the aforementioned discrepancies in prior studies.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Center, AIC