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Bad Roots to Grow: Deficient Implicit Self‐Evaluations in Chronic Depression With an Early Onset
Author(s) -
Randenborgh Annette,
Pawelzik Markus,
Quirin Markus,
Kuhl Julius
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.22275
Subject(s) - psychology , depression (economics) , self esteem , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , economics , macroeconomics
Objective Implicit self‐esteem, which is based on associative learning processes, is considered to be constituted earlier in life than explicit, verbalized self‐esteem. While depressed individuals report negative explicit self‐esteem, research has predominantly demonstrated equivalent levels of implicit self‐esteem of depressed and healthy individuals. We further illuminate this finding by theorizing and empirically demonstrating that chronically depressed individuals show particularly low levels of implicit self‐esteem when depression had an early onset. Method We applied measures of implicit (name–letter test) and explicit (Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale) self‐esteem in chronically depressed patients with an early onset (N = 17), a late onset (N = 13), and an episodic depression (N = 29). Results As expected, patients with an early onset showed lower implicit self‐esteem than the 2 other groups. Conclusion Implicit self‐esteem may function as a marker of how deeply negative self‐views are internalized. Furthermore, the distinction between early and late onset of chronic depression seems to be valuable for classification and potentially treatment of unipolar depression.