Self-Referential Processing and Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Reward devaluation theory posits that depressed individuals avoid and devalue positivity, suggesting that they may hold fewer positive self-schemas. Previous meta-analytic reviews have supported this theoretical framework regarding positivity but have not assessed for self-referential stimuli. Self-referential encoding and recall tasks assess for self-schemas and thus provide further insight into how depressed individuals process self-referential positivity. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to examine the extent to which depressed individuals differ in processing self-referential positivity and negativity and whether this processing differs when depressed individuals think of others (i.e., other-referential). Results indicate that depressed individuals recall and endorse fewer self-referential positive words than negative words and fewer self-referential positive words than other-referential positive words than nondepressed individuals. These findings support reward devaluation theory and suggest that conceptualizing self-referential processing in depression as merely based on negativity biases can overlook crucial information about how depressed individuals devalue self-referential positive information.