A Study On The ERP Characteristics Of Outcome Evaluation In Non-social Comparison And Social Comparison Situations Among College Students With Depression Tendenc

Depression tendency is a risk factor for suicide and major depression.Social comparison plays an important role in inducing and maintaining depressive symptoms and is an important element in the etiology of depression.Exploring the cognitive processing mechanism of depression-prone people from the perspective of social comparison is helpful to explain the social cognitive characteristics of depressed individuals,and further understand the mechanism of social comparison on depression.In this study,Baker Depression Scale and Self-rating Depression Scale were used to screen depressed and non-depressed college students,and ERP technology was used to record the EEG data of the two groups during the simple gambling task.By analyzing the EEG and behavioral data of two groups,the outcome evaluation of depression-prone subjects in nonsocial comparison and social comparison situations were discussed.This study includes a questionnaire study and two ERP experiments.In the first study,questionnaire survey was used to investigate depression and social comparison tendency of college students and explore the relationship between them.It was found that depression and social comparison tendency were significantly positively correlated,and social comparison tendency could significantly predict depression.In experiment 1,the simple gambling task was used to explore the differences of the outcome evaluation process between the depression-prone group and the non-depressionprone group.The results showed that there was no difference between the two groups in EEG indicators and behavioral data.In experiment 2,the participants’ own results and results of others were provided at the same time in the simple gambling task to explore the differences of the outcome evaluation cognitive process between two groups in the social comparison situation.The results showed that the depression-prone group showed different characteristics from the non-depressionprone group in both EEG and behavioral data.Results are as follows:(1)For the non-depressed group,the FRN amplitude induced by others’ loss was significantly larger than that induced by others’ gain.For the depressed group,there was no significant difference.(2)For the non-depressed group,there was no significant difference in P3 amplitude induced by others’ loss and gain.For the depressed group,others’ gain induced the larger P3 amplitude than others’ loss.(3)For the non-depressed group,others’ loss induced the larger LPC than others’ gain.For the depressed group,others’ gain induced the larger P3 amplitude.According to the experiment results and the psychological significance of relevant ERP components,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)In the non-social comparison situation,there was no significant difference in outcome evaluation between the depression-prone group and the non-depression-prone group.(2)In the social comparison situation,depressed individuals payed more attention to others’ gain than others’ loss.(3)In the social comparison situation,compared with the loss,the gain of others had a higher arousal level and stronger emotional experience for the depression-prone individuals.