Abstract
A central question in clinical cognitive psychology concerns why dysfunctional beliefs persist despite corrective evidence. The present research examined whether emotional states function as informational cues in evaluating one's own performance, according to the affect-as-information framework, and how this process might contribute to the maintenance of maladaptive depressive beliefs. Two experiments were conducted. Study 1 extended Scott and Cervone's (2002) paradigm to individuals reporting current sadness, categorized by BDI scores into high and low depression groups. Study 2 replicated this paradigm using emotion induction (sadness, anxiety, and neutral conditions) to isolate the specific role of sadness in shaping performance standards and satisfaction. It was hypothesized that both the subclinical and induced-sadness groups would use their emotional state as information, resulting in higher performance standards and lower satisfaction compared to controls. Contrary to expectations, participants in the subclinical and sadness conditions reported lower performance standards and similar levels of satisfaction relative to controls. These findings suggest that sadness may recalibrate, rather than inflate, selfevaluative standards, promoting a closer correspondence between expectations and actual outcomes. Such adjustment may underlie the phenomenon of depressive realism and contribute to the stability of self-evaluative beliefs in depression. Theoretical and clinical implications regarding the affect-as-information mechanism and cognitive maintenance processes in depressive disorders are discussed.
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@article{Gangemi2026,
title = {Sadness-as-information: What is its role in the maintenance of depressive beliefs?},
author = {Amelia Gangemi and Giulia Bongiovanni and Paolo Spina and Febronia Riggio and Marco Saettoni and Chiara Rizzotto and Francesco Mancini and Andrea Gragnani},
editor = {Elsevier },
url = {https://apc.it/2026-mancini-sadness-as-information-2/},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113871},
isbn = {0191-8869},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-05-01},
urldate = {2026-05-01},
journal = {Personality and Individual Differences},
volume = {259},
abstract = {A central question in clinical cognitive psychology concerns why dysfunctional beliefs persist despite corrective evidence. The present research examined whether emotional states function as informational cues in evaluating one's own performance, according to the affect-as-information framework, and how this process might contribute to the maintenance of maladaptive depressive beliefs. Two experiments were conducted. Study 1 extended Scott and Cervone's (2002) paradigm to individuals reporting current sadness, categorized by BDI scores into high and low depression groups. Study 2 replicated this paradigm using emotion induction (sadness, anxiety, and neutral conditions) to isolate the specific role of sadness in shaping performance standards and satisfaction. It was hypothesized that both the subclinical and induced-sadness groups would use their emotional state as information, resulting in higher performance standards and lower satisfaction compared to controls. Contrary to expectations, participants in the subclinical and sadness conditions reported lower performance standards and similar levels of satisfaction relative to controls. These findings suggest that sadness may recalibrate, rather than inflate, selfevaluative standards, promoting a closer correspondence between expectations and actual outcomes. Such adjustment may underlie the phenomenon of depressive realism and contribute to the stability of self-evaluative beliefs in depression. Theoretical and clinical implications regarding the affect-as-information mechanism and cognitive maintenance processes in depressive disorders are discussed.},
keywords = {sadness},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
