Depression and realism seem to be connected in one way or another.

Some studies suggest that depressed people tend to be more realistic and are often better at estimating themselves and others more truthfully than non-depressed individuals can. They’re inclined to have a more accurate representational view of themselves, others, and the world.

While depression is, for the most part, a negative experience for the individuals suffering from it, depressive realism provides an interesting take that there are some small, albeit possibly significant, advantages to depression and possessing a depressive temperament.

What is depressive realism?

Depressive realism is a psychological hypothesis that was developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abrahamson.

It suggests that depressed individuals have more realistic views and reasoning than non-depressed people do.

It proposes that the negative cognitive bias of depressed individuals results in a more accurate assessment of the world and that non-depressed people might simply be positively biased and, thus, wrongfully appraise the world.

Yet, one of its main criticisms is that depressed people tend to possess a negative cognitive bias. This negative cognitive bias is the reason they have negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs.

Depressive realism explained

One of the reasons why this phenomenon exists is that depressed people are often not desperately trying to maintain and protect their positive self-image.

More so, individuals suffering from depression are frequently more capable of analyzing and noticing the bad things and what could be improved in life.

Due to this increased sensitivity to noticing the negative stuff in life, it might be that they do not necessarily search for just the positives in life. Thus, they are not as positively biased as a lot of non-depressed individuals are.

Numerous people desperately try to confirm their thought patterns, no matter whether they’re true or false. Thus, some people are biased from the very start.

Several will only seek out positive things, and will even try to twist and warp information about themselves and others in a manner that’s convenient and suits them. This oftentimes means changing it in a way that’s protective of their positive self-image, even if untrue.

Most healthy individuals are willing to go to great lengths to defend and maintain that positive self-image. I guess this is because we identify and base our personality on our thoughts and personal views of the world. Thus, a lot of those who are healthy are prone to being positively biased. This might even be an example of cognitive dissonance at play.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance is a term used to describe the uncomfortable tension that comes from holding two conflicting thoughts at the same time or from engaging in behavior that contradicts an individual’s personal beliefs.

It can be explained as the perception of incompatibility between two understandings. This cognition can be defined by knowledge, which includes emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and/or behavior.

This incompatibility between two cognitions drives the mind to invent and acquire new thoughts and beliefs or to change already existing beliefs in such a manner that it serves the purpose of reducing the amount of cognitive dissonance between those two understandings.

Popular criticism against the existence of depressive realism is that, instead of having a more realistic view of the world and belief system, individuals suffering from depression are simply negatively biased.

The other critique is that depressive realism is simply an accidental consequence of the depressed individual being in a situation that agrees with their negative bias, rather than thinking more accurately.

Studies about depressive realism

One meta-analytic study about 75 relevant depressive realism studies representing 7305 participants from across the US and Canada, as well as from England, Spain, and Israel, indicates a small depressive realism effect.

Overall, however, both dysphoric/depressed individuals (d=.14) and nondysphoric/nondepressed individuals evidenced a substantial positive bias (d=.29), with this bias being larger in nondysphoric/nondepressed individuals.

Another study examined the relationship between metacognition and depression. More specifically, the depressive realism hypothesis. It concluded the following:

Consistent with the depressive realism hypothesis, mild depression was associated with better calibration than nondepression.

However, this “sadder but wiser” phenomenon appears to only exist to a point, as moderate depression and nondepression showed no calibration differences.

Thus, the level-of-depression account of depressive realism is supported.

As shown in the conclusion, it seems to suggest that depressive realism does exist, but the severity of depression matters a lot if it holds true or not.

Another study supported the notion that people suffering from a major depressive disorder did not make more accurate judgments of control than their non-depressed counterparts. They concluded:

Depressed patients were no more likely to use the appropriate logical heuristic to generate their judgments of control than their nondepressed counterparts, and each appeared to rely on different primitive heuristics.

Depressed patients were consistently more negative than their nondepressed counterparts, and when they did appear to be more “accurate” in their judgments of control (as in the noncontingent situation), it was largely because they applied the wrong heuristic to less accurate information.

These findings do not support the notion of depressive realism, and suggest that depressed patients distort their judgments in a characteristically negative fashion.

The literature seems to propose that depressed people are more realistic, although there are also studies that seem to indicate no differences in accurate judgment between depressed and non-depressed individuals.

More and larger scientific studies will need to be conducted in the future to come to a conclusive answer.

Are people with depression realists?

Although the hypothesis of depressive realism suggests that people with depression are more realistic, not all individuals suffering from depression are realists.

We must always consider that each individual is different, regardless of whether they’re depressed or not.

Is depressive realism advantageous?

Although depression is, by and large, a negative experience and detrimental to our overall mental and physical health, some studies propose that there is some hidden benefit to being depressed in certain situations.

Those suffering from depression might be more likely to approach and handle situations more realistically, which leads to better and more careful choices.

This could be related to depression itself, or from the fact that people suffering from depression might be more realistic on average.

Final note

Depression and realism seem to be intertwined in some manner.

Even though there’s controversy about whether depressive realism exists or not, we can conclude that going through life with either a positivity bias or a negativity bias is not beneficial for making good decisions. As both will contribute to a less accurate assessment of the world.

Whether you believe in this phenomenon or not, I think it’s up to every one of us to try to eliminate biases and to look at life as realistically as possible without prejudices.

This is something even the most rational of people have trouble doing, as we are all subject to our emotions. Whether we like it or not, feelings, as well as people, are not always logical.