Depression and the impression-formation continuum: Piecemeal processing despite the availability of category information.

A study explored depressed-nondepressed differences in impression formation. From S. T. Fiske and S. L. Neuberg's (1990) model of impression formation, mildly depressed perceivers were hypothesized to engage in more piecemeal processing when forming an impression of a target other, even when nondepressed perceivers would typically use less effortful, categorical processing. With an idiographic technique designed by M. Pavelchak (1989), depressed Ss were shown to use trait attributes in evaluating a person, even when induced to categorize the individual. Nondepressed Ss relied on category information when available, replicating Pavelchak's study. Depressed Ss' results are interpreted as arising from a motivation to engage in effortful analysis of social information, stemming from feelings of lack of control over life events.