Hemispheric Asymmetry and the Response Styles Theory of Depression

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2001
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The Response Styles Theory of Depression was formulated to help explain gender differences in depression. According to this theory, women are more likely than men to ruminate and therefore are more likely to become depressed. The present study attempted to find a relationship between response style and another correlate of depressed mood: posterior hemispheric asymmetry. This study was conducted using an induced mood procedure, a chimeric faces perception task and two measures of response style. Our results indicate significant relationships between gender, response style and hemispheric activation such that a distracting response style is associated with a greater left visual field bias on a chimeric faces task for women only. Contrary to prior findings, we did not find a gender difference in response style. In addition, our results question the validity of using a choice of tasks as a measurement of response style. The interaction between sex, response style and hemispheric activation suggests a relationship between cognitive and biological correlates of depression and indicates that these factors do not necessarily affect men and women in the same way. The lack of a sex difference in response style should be further studied to determine if previously found gender differences are true only for certain populations. Furthermore, the inability of the choice task to predict rumination suggests that a more accurate method of measuring response style in a controlled laboratory setting is needed.
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