Affective confounds in social-cognitive research.

Dysphoria and Hostile Cognition: The Relationship Depends on Levels of Trait Anger

“…First, the cognitive patterns among those reporting dysphoric symptoms appear to clearly depend on the level of co-occurring hostile mood. Our findings of cognitive specificity in this study add to other findings (i.e., Ingram, 1989;Scott et al, 2003;see Scott et al, 2000) emphasizing the importance of discriminating between negative affective states when examining cognitive correlates in dysphoria. Taking into account the findings of Scott et al (2003) and the present study, hostile moods in dysphoria appear to be associated with other-blame attributions for actual negative life events and hostile cognitions that emphasize themes of other criticism and unfairness.…”

“…Although we do not disagree with this general description of cognition in depression, we maintain that "negative"cognition in depressive syndromes can be described with more specificity if the specific negative moods that cooccur in depressive syndromes are taken into account. Ingram (1989) was one of the first to draw attention to this general problem of affective confounding in cognitive clinical research. It was noted that apparent relationships between clinical or subclinical syndromes, such as anxiety and depression, and specific cognitive processes, such as automatic thoughts and self-focused attention, could be due to a number of third variable affective confounds.…”

“…It was noted that apparent relationships between clinical or subclinical syndromes, such as anxiety and depression, and specific cognitive processes, such as automatic thoughts and self-focused attention, could be due to a number of third variable affective confounds. Empirically, Ingram (1989) demonstrated that among a group of socially anxious individuals, the presence of cooccurring dysphoric affect altered the relationship between social anxiety and important cognitive processes including negative and positive automatic thoughts and self-focused attention.…”

Schema specificity in subclinical syndrome depression: Distinctions between automatically versus effortfully encoded state and trait depressive information

“…This is particularly true since the measures of depression employed in the present study have limited specificity in this population . Although this is not inconsistent with the conceptual definition of a depressive syndrome, it is possible that the current results can be attributed to depression, some other negative emotional state, or some generalized combination of states (Ingram, 1989;Kendall et al, 1987).…”

On Introspection and Self-Perception: Does Self-Focused Attention Enable Accurate Self-Knowledge?

“…Private self-consciousness is also associated with emotional intensity (Scheier, 1976;Scheier & Carver, 1977, Studies 2 and 4;Scheier et al, 1981, Study 2). Later research showed that this effect is due to confounded variables, particularly depression (Ingram, 1989, Study 1) and neuroticism (Silvia, in press-a, Study 4), so it is not discussed here. These issues and experiments are extensively reviewed elsewhere ).…”