| dc.description.abstract | Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others and is essential for effective interpersonal functioning across the lifespan. In clinical disorders, this ability is often impaired. In depression, however, significant heterogeneity exists for the strength of the association between depression and ToM performance, with some work indicating ToM deficits in depression, other work finding no such deficits, and still other work suggesting ToM improvement in depression. Heterogeneity within the disorder of depression as well as heterogeneity within the construct of ToM may account for such mixed findings. To clarify these relations, the current project uses two studies to investigate associations of four factors of depression (i.e., somatic symptoms, depressed affect, positive affect, and interpersonal problems) to two aspects of ToM (reasoning vs. decoding). Structural equation modeling results indicated that the interpersonal problems factor of depression was significantly negatively related to reasoning ToM performance and positively related to specific ToM errors reflective of a lack of mentalizing. Conversely, for decoding ToM, no consistent pattern of associations emerged between factors of depression and decoding ToM performance. Findings are discussed in the context of interpersonal theories of depression and with respect to variability in the definition of the construct of ToM. Study limitations, clinical implications, and directions for future research are also discussed. | |
