Dysphorics cannot ignore unpleasant information

Abstract

Using a negative affective priming (NAP) design that allows the disentanglement of NAP for unpleasant and pleasant information, we found significant NAP only for unpleasant information for low scorers on the BDI, whereas high scorers showed significant but reversed NAP for unpleasant information and a significant NAP effect for pleasant information. The result is compatible with the hypothesis that depression is associated with an inability to suppress task-irrelevant negative information.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank Jan De Houwer for helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript.