negative) governs the strength and direction of an emotional response 16. With that in mind, the valence in which such information/stimuli are interpreted (i.e. Indeed, it is well established that depressed individuals often display an elevated perception of negative stimuli and interpret ambiguous neutral information in a disorder congruent manner 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. It is speculated that these biases are more than epiphenomenal in nature, serving a causal role in the development and maintenance of the disorder 9. Emphasized in these models is the notion that depressed individuals, and those at risk for depression, display cognitive biases in several aspects of information processing including attention, interpretation and memory 6, 7, 8. Symptoms of depression are highly prevalent, affecting up to 27% of the general population according to recent meta analytic data 4.Ī number of cognitive models have been advanced to explain the mechanisms underlying the development and maintenance of depression 5. social and inter-personal function) deficits, and difficulties in the adequate regulation of emotions. impaired memory and executive control) 2, 3 and behavioural (e.g. sustained negative affect, absence of positive affect) 1 and is associated with marked cognitive (e.g. Major Depressive Disorder is predominately characterized by disordered affect (i.e. Specifically, by potentially facilitating: a humorous take on a negative experience and situation the perception of peer-support through affiliation with others experiencing similar symptoms and adaptive emotion regulation strategies amongst those with deficits in the ability to deploy such strategies. Despite their negative orientation, internet memes related to depression may be beneficial for individuals experiencing consistent symptoms. However, these differences were mediated by deficits in the ability to deploy adaptive emotion regulation strategies. The perception of humour, relatability, shareability and mood improving potential of depressive, but not control, memes were all greater amongst individuals with symptoms of depression relative to controls. Measures of depression and emotion dysregulation were also completed. Forty-three individuals presenting clinically significant depressive symptoms (indicating ≥15 on the PHQ-9) and 56 non-depressed controls (indicating ≤4) rated the emotional valance, humour, relatability, shareability, and mood improving potential of 32 depressive and control (depicting general neutral or positive social commentaries) internet memes. This study examined whether individuals experiencing significant depressive symptoms would differ from non-depressed controls in their interpretation of internet memes related to depression, whilst incorporating the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulty.
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