Research has already shown that people with depressive symptoms continue to hold on to negative expectations even if they have positive experiences that contradict their expectations. By contrast, healthy people change their expectations after unexpectedly positive experiences. In this experimental study, the authors will now examine whether there are also differences between healthy people and people with depressive symptoms in processing unexpectedly negative experiences. It is hypothesized that people with depressive symptoms change their expectations in a negative direction after unexpectedly negative experiences, while healthy people continue to hold on to an optimistic view.
