MSU faculty, student depression research featured in major psychology publication
Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擱esearch conducted by a faculty member and graduate student in Mississippi State鈥檚 Department of Psychology may provide a better understanding of how depression works and ultimately lead to new treatment innovations.
Assistant professor E. Samuel 鈥淪am鈥 Winer said the article co-authored with clinical psychology doctoral student Taban Salem was based on a statistical review of the dot-probe paradigm鈥攐ne of the most common tasks used to assess how people come to understand emotional information.
Their findings are published in the January 2016 issue of Psychological Bulletin, one of the leading journals in the field of psychology.
The dot-probe task allows researchers to examine attentional biases by measuring the speed with which participants respond to a dot following emotional (positive or negative) or neutral information.
鈥淚n this task, we know that individuals with depressed symptoms value or approach negative words, but what we鈥檙e now learning is that they are also avoiding positive words,鈥 Winer said. 鈥淭his means that individuals suffering from depression may not only not value reward in the way that nondepressed individuals do, but that they may in fact devalue reward. That is, they may be less likely to approach rewarding information (such as something hopeful) than anything else.鈥
鈥淭he subtle but very important idea that depressed individuals avoid positivity is not routinely addressed in current treatments, so the hope is that this new way of conceptualizing depression could ultimately be used to affect clinical change,鈥 he emphasized.
Winer holds doctoral and master鈥檚 degrees in psychology and also earned a bachelor鈥檚 in English with Highest Distinction from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Salem is a graduate of MSU鈥檚 clinical psychology master鈥檚 program and holds a bachelor鈥檚 in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Visit to discover more about MSU鈥檚 psychology department.
Winer may be contacted at e.samuel.winer@msstate.edu.
MSU is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .