The purpose of the proposed research is to examine the possible automatic influence of stored knowledge structures on the initial stages of the social inference process. Of particular interest is the effect of future-event schemata which have been shown to typify moderately and severely depressed perceivers and to result in pessimistic predictions of event occurrences. The theoretical framework developed in this proposal argues that previous researchers have failed to find the depression-related differences in dispositional and situational inferences for others' outcomes because they have failed to employ more recent and sophisticated models of and more appropriate investigative methods for examining the inference process. More specifically, it is argued that previous failures to find depressed-nondepressed differences actually have resulted from the (unexamined) interactive effects of behavior characterization and inferential correction stages of the inference process. %%% The proposed research will examine the idea that moderately and severely depressed people try to compensate for their negative views when making judgments about other people. At first, depressed people are thought to develop unfavorable explanations for other people's positive and negative accomplishments. However, by engaging in additional thought, depressed people are sometimes able to correct for this bias. As a result, such people often give the appearance of making unbiased inferences about others' actions. If confirmed, this bias-correcting process could have important implications for the promotion of human potential. In everyday situations, people are often distracted or otherwise engaged in thought, and therefore unable to engage in inferential correction. As a result, their social interactions and evaluations may be colored by their negatively-biased characterizations of others' behaviors. This, in turn, can have very large negative consequences. For example, in educational and other work-related settings, numerous stressors and other mental health problems (notably depression) have been identified. In such settings, teachers and supervisors may well be unable to correct their negatively-biased, automatic attributions for and evaluations of others' performances. The social and economic consequences may be very significant for students and employees.
