| Three studies examined the relationships between depressive symptoms and self-protective low expectations, which aim to limit negative affective reactions to unfavorable outcomes. As hypothesized, Study 1 found that increasing levels of depressive symptoms corresponded with stronger self-protective expectation styles. Moreover, that relationship was not accounted for by self-handicapping or defensive pessimism tendencies. Level of self-esteem accounted for the largest portion of the relationship between self-protection and depressive symptoms. Study 2 hypothesized that manipulating the salience of self-concept resources would differentially affect expectations for a verbal intelligence task as a function of depressive symptoms. Contrary to hypotheses, the self-resource manipulation had no effect on expectations or self-protective motivations to manage reactive affect via lowered expectations. Across all participants, higher levels of depressive symptoms correlated with lower expectations. Stronger self. protective motivations were also associated with lower expectations. Study 3 utilized a 2 x 2 x 2 design (Depressive Symptoms x Success/Failure Condition x Expectations) to examine the efficacy of self-protective expectations in limiting negative affect after an anagram task. Results indicated a significant three-way interaction in which depressives with high expectations showed particularly negative affective reactions to failure relative to success. The negative affect response of depressives with low expectations was parallel in magnitude to the mild increases in negative affect following failure versus success shown by nondepressives. Additionally, no relative boost in positive affect was found for either depressive or nondepressive participants who had lower expectations, experienced success in the anagrams task. Results are discussed in relation to self-protection theory as well as to the course and treatment of depressive symptoms. |
