Perceptions of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Antidepressant Medication for Depression After Brief Psychoeducation: Examining Shifts in Attitudes.

The majority of people with depression in the United States either never seek treatment or gravitate exclusively to antidepressant medication (ADM), despite the existence of other effective treatments, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Reluctance to use psychotherapy is partly due to lack of appropriate mental health literacy and perceptions of low treatment acceptability (appropriateness for a given problem) and credibility (treatment logicalness, and whether the patient expects improvement). In the current investigation, we examined whether providing psychoeducation about CBT for depression would change participant perceptions of the treatment's acceptability and credibility. We recruited 554 (female n = 314; 57%) participants across two online studies, and assessed their baseline perceptions of CBT and ADM using modified Treatment Acceptability (TAAS) and Treatment Credibility and Expectancy (CEQ) scales. Participants were subsequently presented with evidence-based, expert-vetted psychoeducational materials describing CBT and ADM, and were asked to recomplete the TAAS and CEQ. In Study 1, participants endorsed significantly higher CBT-CEQ (credibility/expectancy) scores postpsychoeducation. In Study 2, participants endorsed significantly lower CBT-TAAS (acceptability), and among those with no exposure to depression treatments, endorsed significantly higher CBT-CEQ scores postpsychoeducation. In both studies, there were no perceptual changes of ADM after the psychoeducation. Finally, in Study 2, endorsement of a biological model of depression and depressive symptoms were negatively predictive of CBT's acceptability and credibility and expectancy postpsychoeducation. Perceptions of credibility and expectancy of CBT for depression appear malleable even after exposure to brief psychoeducation, whereas shifting perceptions of CBT's acceptability may require more extensive intervention.

Does stress mediate the association between personal relative deprivation and gambling?

Evidence has linked subjective feelings of personal relative deprivation with general gambling involvement and problem gambling tendencies. In turn, problem gambling tendencies have been linked with a wide array of damaging physical and mental health consequences. It has been theorized that the deleterious effects of perceived inequality on mental and physical health operate at the individual level through the experience of personal relative deprivation leading to psychosocial stress. We empirically examined whether the experience of perceived stress contributes to explaining the deprivation-gambling link using cross-sectional, self-reported survey data collected from a crowdsourced population of adults (n = 565). Results indicate that personal relative deprivation is associated with problem gambling tendencies (but not general gambling involvement) and that this association is mediated by perceived stress. These associations were particularly strong among participants who reported non-zero levels of problem gambling tendencies. Together, our results further emphasize the importance of individual-level social comparison reactions in the context of health.

Minding the gap: Subjective relative deprivation and depressive symptoms.

Substantial evidence has linked depressive symptoms to various indices of societal-level inequality and relative deprivation. A larger literature has also addressed cognitive vulnerability and correlates of depression. Despite this evidence, little research to date has examined the relationship of depressive symptoms with such downstream individual-level consequences of inequality as subjective relative deprivation, or whether relative deprivation is associated with cognitive vulnerability in depression. We conducted two investigations among four separate samples (total N = 2999) to examine associations between subjective relative deprivation and depressive symptoms and cognitions. Across our studies and four different self-report measures of depressive symptoms, we found consistent significant positive associations between subjective relative deprivation and depression symptoms. Further, we found that subjective relative deprivation was predictive of depressive symptoms over and above other known vulnerability factors. Finally, we found that the relationship between subjective relative deprivation and depressive symptoms was fully mediated by negative automatic thoughts about self. These results provide further evidence of the importance of subjective deprivation in maintaining negative mental health outcomes.