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Recent theory suggests that affective states are mentally represented and manipulated in working memory (WM). WM allows active maintaining and manipulating of mental representations for brief periods of time. Representation of affective states in WM has been referred to as affective working memory (AWM). In this study, the association between AWM and the duration of the affective response will be examined among individuals with varying degrees of depressive symptoms.

Biased interpretations of ambiguous information have been theorized to play a role in depression (e.g., Mehu & Scherer, 2015). Recent work demonstrates that depression severity was not only associated with increased negative and decreased positive interpretation biases of social situations but also with reduced revision of negative interpretations by disconfirmatory positive information (e.g., Everaert, Bronstein, Cannon, & Joormann, 2018). These findings suggest that depression features both biased interpretations and negative interpretation inflexibility (NII) in socially ambiguous situations. Aims of the current study: 1) To examine the cross-sectional and temporal relations between NII, mood state and symptoms of depression. We will examine both contemporaneous and temporal association between NII and mood state and symptoms. 2) To examine the role NII plays in the association between life stress and depressive symptoms. Negative social events are known to play a role in the occurrence of depressive symptoms. We will examine whether NII will moderate the association between life events and symptoms. 3) To examine whether inflexible individuals (i.e., those characterized by higher NII) will have less well calibrated predictions about social events in their future (i.e., their expectations for negative social event are more pessimistic/optimistic than reality). As an exploratory aim, we will examine whether more inflexible individuals will experience greater negative affect when their predictions about negative social events in their future are more pessimistic than reality. 4) To examine the cross-lagged longitudinal association between global depressive schemas and NII. As an exploratory aim, we will examine the temporal stability of NII (i.e., auto-regressive paths between NII, measured at different time points). To test our aims, we have participants complete the Emotional BADE task, the TENSE assessment of the occurrence of negative social events in the past three weeks (TENSE-O), and future expectations of negative social events (TENSE-E) and self-report scales (BDI, DAS) at three time points, occurring three weeks apart.