THE ACTIVITIES OF DEPRESSED WOMEN AGED 30--60: BEHAVIORAL, COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE MEANING PERSPECTIVES

A loss of interest or pleasure in formerly enjoyable activities is a predominant feature of clinical depression. Empirical studies emanating from a behavioral reinforcement model of depression have demonstrated a significant positive relationship between mood level and engagement in pleasant activities. The depressed person's activities have been considered in a cognitive model of depression in anecdotal and clinical reports but have not been systematically examined. The purpose of this research was to gain a broader understanding of the activities of depressed women by integrating aspects of these behavioral and cognitive models and by measuring the affective meaning of selected activities.;As expected, the depressed group had significantly higher BDI scores and significantly lower PES pleasure and frequency scores. These large between-group differences resulted in spuriously high inverse correlations between severity of depression and activity frequency and pleasure when the groups were analyzed together. This relationship disappeared when the groups were analyzed singly. A significant Group x Pleasure x Frequency interaction was demonstrated with the evaluation semantic differential scores, with the depressed group giving more negative evaluations to activities categorized Low Pleasure/High Frequency. A significant Group x Pleasure interaction occurred with the action data, with the depressed group rating High Pleasure activities as requiring less action. The potency data revealed no significant main effects or interactions.;Activities varying in levels of pleasure and frequency are described for each subject group and for individual subjects within each group. The findings are related to cognitive characteristics of depression, including mood-state-dependent memory, and to structures of meaning. The latter operate through processes of selection, negation, and reduction of complexity of events.;Twenty women aged 30-60 hospitalized with a primary psychiatric diagnosis of depression were compared to twenty nondepressed control subjects. Each subject completed the following self-report measures: the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) assessed the degree of depression; the Pleasant Events Schedule (PES) determined the subjective pleasure and frequency of participation in 320 activities; and ten semantic differential scales measured the perceived evaluation, potency, and action characteristics (the three major dimensions of meaning derived from the semantic differential technqiue) of selected activities.