Schematic processing and self-reference in childhood depression

The purpose of the study was to examine the self-schemata content and assess the self-referent processing tendencies of depressed and nondepressed children. Subjects were 49 ten to twelve year-old elementary and junior high school students. Presence and severity of depression were assessed with a self-report measure of depression and with a clinical interview. An incidental recall paradigm employing personally relevant information was used to examine the subjects' self-referent processing patterns. Results indicated that depressed children had a negative bias in their recall of personally relevant information while such a bias was not evident in the recall of the nondepressed subjects. Results will be discussed in terms of their clinical and theoretical significance to the study of childhood depression.