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A comparison of the quantitative aspects of verbal and nonverbal noncontent dimensions of speech in depressed and nondepressed college students

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this study was to see if depressed and nondepressed college students differed in their verbal and nonverbal noncontent dimensions of speech when exposed to a positively emotionally toned or a negatively emotionally toned experimental interview. Forty female undergraduate volunteers who participated in the study were assigned to two groups, depressed or nondepressed, on the basis of their scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, 1967), the Depression Adjective Checklist (Lubin, 1965), and the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist (Zuckerman & Lubin, 1965). Depressed subjects were then randomly assigned to the positive or negative interview, as were nondepressed subjects. There were 10 subjects in each of the four groups: the depressed positive condition; the depressed negative condition; the nondepressed positive condition, the nondepressed negative condition. Contrary to the hypotheses, there was only one significant difference between the depressed and nondepressed subjects; the depressed subjects interrupted less times than the nondepressed subjects in the combined interview conditions. There were no significant interview by group membership interactions. The analysis did reveal that for four of the eight noncontent dimensions of speech there were significant differences between the two interview conditions. These differences were: less interrupting in the negative interview condition; less eye contact in the negative interview condition; fewer smiles in the negative condition; fewer nods in the negative condition. During the negative interview the subjects' reactions to critical remarks, made by the interviewers, were scored in three categories: agreements with the critical statements; challenging the critical statements; making no response to the critical statements. No significant differences between the depressed and nondepressed subjects in the three categories were found.

Text

2010-02-26

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21009

Psychology

University of British Columbia

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