TY  - JOUR
A1  - Arens, Elisabeth A.
A1  - Stangier, Ulrich
T1  - Sad as a matter of evidence: The desire for self-verification motivates the pursuit of sadness in clinical depression
T2  - Frontiers in psychology
N2  - Background: Research on desired emotions revealed that individuals want to feel negative emotions if they expect these emotions to yield certain benefits. In previous studies, the pursuit of sadness (e.g., via pursuing art that evokes sadness) has been attributed to hedonic motives, i.e., to feel pleasure. We propose that in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) the pursuit of sadness may be more strongly related to self-verification motives, i.e., to sustain their sense of self through feeling sad.
Methods: Participants with MDD (n = 50) were compared to non-depressed controls (n = 50) in their desired emotional states, as indicated by selected music (sad, happy and neutral), and in their motives (hedonic vs. self-verification) for choosing sad music. Groups were also compared in their self-reported general preference for sadness and the perceived functionality of sadness.
Results: MDD participants showed a significant higher desire for sadness; more than half of them deliberately chose sad music. Whereas MDD participants had a marked preference for self-verification over hedonic motives, the reverse was true for non-depressed controls. MDD participants also agreed more strongly with self-verifying functions of sadness and expressed a stronger general preference for sadness.
Conclusion: Findings indicate that emotion regulation in MDD might be driven by self-verification motives. They point to the relevance of exploring patients’ desired emotional states and associated motives. The systematic integration of positive affect into the self-image of depressed patients might help to deemphasize the self-verifying function of sadness, thereby overcoming the depression.
KW  - major depressive disorder
KW  - emotion regulation
KW  - desired affect
KW  - goals
KW  - motives
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/52948
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-529489
SN  - 1664-1078
N1  - Copyright © 2020 Arens and Stangier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
VL  - 11
IS  - Art. 238
SP  - 1
EP  - 8
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -