Cognitive Therapy and Research, Vol. 29, No. 3, June 2005 ( C© 2005), pp. 279–288DOI: 10.1007/s10608-005-0511-1

It’s All About Me: Self-Focused Attentionand Depressed Mood

Denise M. Sloan1

The present study examined self-focused attention in dysphoria under various moodconditions. Participants were randomly assigned to either a positive, negative, or neu-tral writing condition. Results indicated that dysphoric participants displayed signifi-cantly greater self-focused attention across all conditions relative to the non-dysphoricparticipants. Taken together, these findings indicate that heightened self-focused atten-tion is a pervasive pattern in dysphoric persons that may contribute to maintenance ofa dysphoric mood state.

KEY WORDS: dysphoria; self-focus attention; written disclosure.

There is an extensive literature linking the importance of cognitive biases tothe development and maintenance of depressed mood (Deldin, Keller, Gergen, &Miller, 2001; Mineka & Gilboa, 1998). Yet one type of cognitive bias, self-focusedattention (SFA), has received relatively little empirical attention. Ingram (1990)defined SFA as “an awareness of self-referent, internally generated informationthat stands in contrast to an awareness of externally generated information derivedthrough sensory receptors” (p. 156). Although some degree of SFA is beneficial,heightened SFA can be detrimental. For instance, some investigators have specu-lated that the increased SFA displayed among depressed individuals is detrimentalbecause it exacerbates depressed mood through the increased focus on self-blameand negative mood state (see Mor & Winquist, 2002; Pyszczynski & Greenberg,1987 for reviews). These investigators have also speculated that an increase in self-focus in dysphoric persons occurs pervasively (e.g., across both positive and negativeconditions) and results in further increases in negative affect.

Studies examining SFA in dysphoric individuals have generally found that,compared to non-dysphoric individuals, dysphoric persons show heightened SFA(e.g., Edison & Adams, 1992; Woodruff-Borden, Brothers, & Lister, 2001). Typi-cally these studies have examined the relationship between depression symptoms

1Department of Psychology, Weiss Hall, Temple University, Philadelphia 19122; e-mail: dsloan@temple.edu.

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and SFA using self-report questionnaires in the absence of experimental manipu-lation; thus, whether or not heightened SFA occurs in specific conditions (negativemood state) or is a pervasive pattern has received little attention. Several studieshave used experimental manipulations to investigate the conditions in which height-ened SFA occurs in dysphoria. For instance, Pyszczynski and Greenberg (1985)informed dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants that they had either passed orfailed a verbal test and, after which, the frequency of looking at oneself in the mir-ror was examined. Findings indicated that SFA increased for dysphoric persons onlyafter they were informed that they failed the verbal test.

Ingram and Wisnicki (1999) also studied the effects of condition on heightenedSFA in depression. In this study, dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants com-pleted measures of SFA and mood after either a positive or negative mood induc-tion procedure. A control group of dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants thatwas not exposed to any mood induction procedure also completed the SFA andmood measures. In contrast to the findings of Pyszczynski and Greenberg (1985),results indicated that, relative to the non- dysphoric participants in the mood induc-tion conditions, SFA increased for dysphoric participants after both positive andnegative mood conditions. Group differences in SFA were not observed for partic-ipants assigned to the control condition. Further, a relationship between SFA anddepressed mood approached significance for the dysphoric participants in the neg-ative mood induction procedure. Ingram and Wisnicki interpreted these findings asevidence that dysphoric individuals display a generalized pattern of SFA and thatthe increasing SFA is related to increased depressed mood for dysphoric individualsonly.

Although SFA is consistently found among dysphoric individuals, the two stud-ies described previously obtained inconsistent results with respect to the perva-siveness of the heightened SFA pattern. However, it should be noted that thePyszczynski and Greenberg study induced SFA through the use of a mirror whilethe Ingram and Wisnicki study did not. This methodological difference may accountfor the conflicting findings in pervasiveness of the SFA response.

Another issue that may account for discrepant findings relates to the use of theself-report measure to index SFA. The Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS; Fenigstein,Scheier, & Buss, 1975) is the measure used by most investigators examining SFA.However, this measure was intended to index dispositional self-focus. When theSCS has been used to study momentary self-focus, the items are modified accord-ingly. This practice may be problematic because the psychometric properties of theoriginal measure are likely compromised when items are changed. In an effort tocircumvent the problems associated with using the SCS, some investigators havesuggested that the extent to which pronouns, particularly first person singular pro-nouns (i.e., I, me, my), are used may be a more sensitive and appropriate index ofSFA (e.g., Silva & Abele, 2002; Salovey, 1992). This approach was recently used ina study examining SFA in dysphoric individuals.

Rude, Gortner, and Pennebaker (2004) examined SFA in a study which par-ticipants were instructed to write for 20 min about their deepest thoughts and feel-ings about coming to college. Word use in the written essays was then comparedbetween dysphoric and non-dysphoric college students using the Linguistic Inquiry

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and Word Count text analysis program (LIWC; Pennebaker & Francis, 1996). Inaddition to examining the use of first-person singular pronouns, the researchers alsoexamined the frequency of positive and negative emotion words used. Results indi-cated that compared to non-dysphoric participants, dysphoric participants referredto themselves more frequently (i.e., use of the pronoun ‘I’) and used more negativeemotion words. Because this study included only one writing condition (which par-ticipants may have experienced as positive, negative, or neutral), the question of thepervasiveness of SFA could not be addressed.

Taken together, there is strong evidence that dysphoric individuals experienceincreased SFA. However, the mood condition (e.g., negative mood condition, pos-itive mood condition) under which this pattern occurs is less clear. A few criticalmethodological issues may account for the discrepant findings reported in the liter-ature. One issue is the use of a measure of SFA with questionable reliability andvalidity. Another methodological concern is that a number of studies have not in-vestigated the occurrence of SFA in various mood conditions (Flory, Raeikkoenen,Matthews, & Owens, 2000; Rude et al., 2004), making generalizations about thepattern of heightened SFA in individuals with dysphoria difficult. Further, studiesthat have included both negative and positive mood conditions have typically ex-cluded a neutral (control) condition. If dysphoric participants show a global patternof heightened SFA, then one would expect dysphoric persons to show this patternacross all conditions.

The purpose of this study was to further examine SFA in dysphoric and non-dysphoric college students when writing about negative, positive, and neutral topics.Word use was used as the primary dependent variables in this investigation. Con-sistent with the theory of SFA and depressed mood, it was predicted that dysphoricindividuals would display increased SFA by referring to themselves (i.e., using morefirst person singular pronouns) more frequently than the non-dysphoric individualsacross all writing conditions. Consistent with Rude et al. (2004), group differencesin the use of positive and negative emotion words was also examined. As notedpreviously, Rude et al. found an increase in negative emotion words for dysphoricstudents compared to non-dysphoric students when writing about a their experi-ences transitioning to college. However, there is a growing literature indicating thatdepressed mood may be best characterized by a deficit in positivity (Berenbaum &Oltmanns, 1992; Deldin et al., 2001; Sloan, Strauss, & Wisner, 2001; Watson, Clark,Weber, & Assenheimer, 1995). In view of this literature, it was anticipated that dys-phoric participants would use fewer positive emotion words in the positive writingcondition compared to non-dysphoric participants, while no group differences wereexpected for negative emotion word use.

METHOD

Participants

Participants were 117 undergraduate students enrolled in an Introductory Psy-chology course at an urban university in the northeastern region of the United

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States. Of the 117 participants, 64 were females, 62 were White, not of Hispanicorigin (37 African-American, 7 Hispanic, 6 Asian-American, 5 “other” or mixedracial background), and the mean age was 19.2 (SD = 2.4). Forty-nine percent ofthe sample (n = 57) was classified in the dysphoric group (32 female, 32 White)and 51 percent (n = 60) was classified in the non-dysphoric group (30 female, 30White). All individuals received course credit in exchange for their participation.Participants were informed that the purpose of the study was to examine individualdifferences in how people write about stories about their lives.

Measure of Depressed Mood

The most recent version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II; Beck,Steer, & Brown, 1996) is a 21-item self-report measure that assesses cognitive, af-fective, motivational, and physiological symptoms of depression over the past twoweeks. The BDI-II has good to excellent internal consistency, temporal stability,and convergent and discriminant validity (Beck et al., 1996).

Linguistic Analysis

The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, 2001 (LIWC2001; Pennebaker,Francis, & Booth, 2001) is a computerized text analysis program used to examinelinguistic patterns in this study. The program individually searches text files andcomputes the percentage of words that reflect, among other things, first-person sin-gular, negative emotion words, and positive emotion words. These and other LIWCdimensions of words are part of an extensive dictionary file that is composed ofover 2,100 words or word stems. LIWC calculates the total number of words, sen-tences, percentages of unique words, and dictionary words. The sum of each scaleis converted to a percentage of total words to correct for differences in text lengthbetween participants.

In this study, the written essay for each participant was converted to a com-puter text file and a linguistic analysis of all text passages were conducted usingthe LIWC2001.2 The following linguistic dimensions were the focus of the presentanalyses: First person singular pronouns (e.g., I, me, my); negative emotion words(e.g., gloom, fight, sad, homesick, inadequate); and positive emotion words (e.g.,joyful, accept, best, play, share). The mean percent of words in each linguistic cat-egory out of the total number of words used in the essay was used in the dataanalysis.

Self-Reported Affect

To assess whether the writing conditions manipulated mood state, participantscompleted a measure of situational affect following the writing task. The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) (Bradley & Lang, 1994) uses manikin figures on a9-point scale for the dimension of valence (unpleasantness), which ranges from a

2Misspelled words were corrected when converting the written essay into the text file.

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happy, smiling figure (1, very pleasant) to an unhappy, frowning figure (9, veryunpleasant). Previous research has demonstrated that the valence dimension re-liably co-varies with physiological reactions associated with emotional experience(e.g., skin conductance, heart rate, and facial electromyography), suggesting thatthe SAM is a valid measure of affective responding (Bradley, Greenwald, Petry,& Lang, 1992). In this study immediately following the writing task participantswere asked to complete the SAM valence rating according to how they felt at thatmoment.

As part of a larger packet of questionnaires, students (n = 976) completed theBDI-II at the beginning of the semester and participants for this study were ini-tially selected on the basis on their score on the BDI-II. Specifically, the dysphoricgroup consisted of randomly selected individuals who scored at least 15 or higheron the BDI-II and the non-dysphoric group consisted of randomly selected individ-uals who scored 12 or less. Individuals with BDI-II scores of 0 or 1 were excludedfrom the study. This procedure has been recommended based on findings that par-ticipants with extremely low scores on the BDI show elevated social desirability(Clark, Crewdson, & Purdon, 1998) and “fake good” tendencies, as measured byMMPI validity scales (e.g., Joiner, Schmidt, & Metalsky, 1994). This exclusion cri-teria was also used by Rude et al. (2004). As the responses on depression measureshave been shown to be somewhat transient (Kendall, Hollon, Beck, Hammen, &Ingram, 1987) the BDI-II was completed again on the day of the experimental ses-sion. Only individuals meeting these criteria on the second administration of theBDI-II were included in this study. Time between the first and second administra-tion of the BDI-II was no longer than two weeks.

Upon arrival to the lab and after providing informed consent, participants com-pleted a brief demographic questionnaire and the second administration of theBDI-II. Participants were then randomly assigned (within group) to one of threewriting conditions (positive, negative, and neutral) and were given the appropri-ate writing instructions for their assigned writing condition. Briefly, participants as-signed to the positive writing condition were instructed to write about the happiest,most joyful experience of their entire life with as much emotion and feeling as possi-ble. Those assigned to the negative writing condition were instructed to write aboutthe most traumatic/distressing experience of their entire life with as much emotionand feeling as possible. Lastly, participants assigned to the neutral writing conditionwere instructed to write about how they spent their time during the previous dayas accurately and in as much detail as possible, with no emotions or opinions. Allparticipants wrote alone, in a private room and were instructed to write continu-ously for 20 min. The writing instructions for the negative and neutral writing con-ditions followed the standard protocol developed by Pennebaker (1997) and thereis a long line of work demonstrating that writing about traumatic/distressing expe-riences produces substantial increases in negative affect (for a review see, Sloan& Marx, 2004). Instructions for the positive writing condition were revised fromthe standard protocol and included instructions to write about the most positive orhappy life experience. Participants completed the SAM valence rating immediatelyfollowing the writing task and were then fully debriefed, given course credit, andthanked for their time.

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RESULTS

Preliminary Analyses

No significant group by writing condition differences were found for gen-der, ethnicity, or age. As anticipated, a significant group difference was obtainedfor BDI-II score obtained on day of the writing task, t(116) = 15.95, p < .001,reffect size = .20 (Rosenthal, Rosnow, & Rubin, 2000), with dysphoric participantsreporting significantly greater depressive symptoms (M = 20.3, SD = 4.4) than thenon-dysphoric participants (M = 4.4, SD = 2.0).

Analyses were conducted to examine if there were group differences in va-lence ratings to each writing condition and if the writing conditions were effective ateliciting the intended affect. First, independent samples t-tests, conducted for eachwriting condition, indicated that the groups did not significantly differ in their self-reported valence rating to any of the writing conditions (largest p = .22). A one-way ANOVA was conducted to examine valence ratings to each writing condition.A significant effect was found for writing condition, F(2, 115) = 71.42, p < .001,reffect size− = .62. Scheffe post hoc tests indicated that participants rated the positivewriting condition as significantly more pleasurable (M = 2.46, SD = 1.1) comparedwith the neutral writing condition (M = 3.72, SD = 1.4; p < .001). In turn, partic-ipants rated the negative writing condition as significantly more unpleasant com-pared with the neutral writing condition (M = 6.02, SD = 1.6; p < .001). As wouldbe expected, valence ratings between the positive and negative writing conditionalso significantly differed (p < .001). Thus, the writing task was effective in elicitingthe intended affect.

Next, to examine whether the groups differed in overall word production tothe written essays an independent samples t-test was conducted using total wordcount as the dependent variable. This analysis indicated that the dysphoric andnon-dysphoric groups did not differ in overall word production (M = 1056.21, SD =121.6; M = 1025.68, SD = 188.8, respectively).

Linguistic Word Use

To examine predicted group differences in word use, a 2 (group) by 3 (writ-ing condition) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed using the linguisticcategories as the dependent variables, separately for each linguistic category (first-person singular, negative emotion words, and positive emotion words). Table Ipresents the mean percentage of word usage for each linguistic variable as a functionof group and writing condition. An examination of the first person singular pronounuse revealed a significant group effect, F(1, 112) = 4.24, p < .05, reffect size = .19.Consistent with the hypothesized generalized SFA pattern for dysphoria, dyspho-ric participants referred to themselves (M = 6.86, SD = 1.4) significantly more fre-quently than the non-dysphoric participants (M = 4.86, SD = 1.7) across all thewriting conditions. No other significant differences were obtained for first-personsingular pronoun use.

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Table I. Mean Percent (Standard Deviation) of Linguistic Word Use As a Function ofGroup and Writing Condition

First-person singular Negative words Positive words

Depressed (n = 57)Negative (n = 20) 6.61 (1.3) 1.41 (.66) .82 (.51)Neutral (n = 18) 6.47 (1.8) .30 (.28) .31 (.31)Positive (n = 19) 6.37 (1.3) .68 (.45) 1.35 (.51)

Non-depressed (n = 60)Negative (n = 21) 4.87 (1.9) 1.21 (.62) .75 (.46)Neutral (n = 17) 5.02 (1.4) .30 (.20) .33 (.28)Positive (n = 22) 4.70 (1.5) .78 (69) 2.99 (.59)

Note. Linguistic dimensions are shown as mean percent of words in a given linguisticcategory out of the total number of words used in the essay.

With regard to negative emotion word use, findings indicated a significant maineffect for writing condition, F(2, 112) = 27.62, p < .001, reffect size = .45. As wouldbe expected, Scheffe post hoc tests indicated that participants in the negative writingcondition used negative emotion words (M = 1.31, SD = .09) significantly more fre-quently than participants in the positive (M = .73, SD = .09) and neutral (M = .32,SD = .11) writing conditions. However, no significant group or interaction effectswere found for the use of negative emotion words.

Analyses for positive emotion words use also revealed a significant main effectfor writing condition, F(2, 112) = 17.13, p < .001, reffect size = .37. Scheffe post hoctests indicated that participants in the positive writing condition used significantlymore positive emotion words (M = 1.70, SD = .62) than participants in the negative(M = .74, SD = .45) or neutral (M = .32, SD = .27) writing conditions. A significantgroup effect was also found, F(1, 112) = 9.15, p < .01, reffect size = .28, which wasqualified by a significant group by writing condition interaction, F(2, 112) = 4.68,p < .05, reffect size = .20. Post hoc analyses indicated that the significant interactionwas the result of group differences in the positive writing condition. As anticipated,dysphoric participants assigned to the positive writing condition used significantlyfewer positive emotion words (M = 1.35, SD = .51) relative to the non-dysphoricparticipants (M = 2.99, SD = .59).

DISCUSSION

The findings of this study suggest that dysphoric individuals show a pervasivepattern of heightened SFA relative to non-dysphoric participants. These findingsare consistent with that of Ingram and Wisnicki (1999) who also found a globalresponse pattern of heightened SFA among dysphoric college students. It hasbeen suggested that such a heightened state of internal focus may further spiraldepressed mood states, as the more the person focuses on themselves the less ablethe person is to consider their external environment (Pyszczynski & Greenberg,1987), which is critical to successful problem-solving (Hamilton & Ingram, 2001).Although this causal relationship was not examined in this study, given the findingsof the pervasiveness of SFA it would be important to examine if SFA results inincreases in negative mood.

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Extending upon the work of Rude et al. (2004), the use of positive and nega-tive emotion words was also examined in this study. Contrary to the results foundby Rude et al., results of this study indicated that dysphoric participants did not usemore negative emotion words than the non-dysphoric participants in any of the writ-ing conditions. However, it was found that dysphoric participants used significantlyfewer positive emotion words than non-dysphoric participants when writing aboutpositive life experiences. This finding is consistent with the literature indicating thatdysphoric individuals produce fewer positive words relative to non-dysphoric indi-viduals (e.g., Sloan, Strauss, & Wisner, 2001).

While the findings of this study are intriguing, several limitations should benoted. First, the dysphoric group in this study consisted of college students whoscored high on the BDI-II. Although a commonly used and well-validated mea-sure of depression was used to identify the dysphoric group, the participants werenot evaluated for clinical depression. However, other studies examining SFA in de-pressed mood have primarily used college students identified on the basis of theirself-reports of depression symptoms (e.g., Ingram & Wisnicki, 1999; Pyszczynski& Greenberg, 1985; Rude et al., 2004). Thus, the results of the current study canbe more readily compared to the findings previously reported in the literature.Nonetheless, it is possible that the results obtained with a college sample scor-ing high on a depression measure may not generalize to clinical depressed sam-ples. It should also be noted that, while the use of the writing task used here hascertain merits, it is not without limitations. Perhaps the most notable limitationmay be the introduction of a memory bias that has been observed among dys-phoric individuals (Walker, Skowronski, & Thompson, 2003). Specifically, dyspho-ric individuals may show an inability to recall positive life events relative to non-dysphoric persons and this bias may have resulted in a confound for the positivewriting condition. Another possible limitation is the LIWC program used to quan-tify word use. While the LIWC has the advantage of being objective and consis-tent across all participants, there are potential limitations of this approach. Forinstance, words may have been counted in emotion categories inaccurately. If aparticipant wrote “I was not happy” the word happy would be counted as a pos-itive emotion word when the participant intended the statement to reflect a neg-ative emotion. Fifteen percent of the essays (n = 18) were randomly selected tobe examined for the frequency of such inaccurate classifications. Of the 18 es-says examined inaccurate linguistic classification occurred only four times. There-fore, although inaccurate classification is a potential shortcoming of the LIWCprogram, this shortcoming appears to have a limited impact on the linguisticanalysis.

Overall, the results presented here suggest that dysphoric persons show aglobal pattern of heightened SFA relative to non-dysphoric individuals. These find-ings further support the notion that treatments that incorporate distracting atten-tion away from oneself (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000) or that emphasize self-focus in away that reduces the maladaptive aspects of this process (e.g., mindfulness medi-tation; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002) may hold much promise for dysphoricindividuals.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was supported by a Temple University Junior Faculty grant and a re-search study leave awarded to Denise M. Sloan. The author thanks Cecilia Cliffordfor her assistance with data collection.

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