E-ISSN : 2733-4538
This study was conducted to investigate causal relationship between depression and social problem solving ability. In the first experiment, depressive and happy mood were induced by a modified version of the Velten mood induction procedure to 62 normal college students in order to see any relationship between depression and problem solving ability. And then attitudes toward problem situation and problem solving abilities were measured from the two different mood groups. It was found that depressive mood affects on the both qualitative and quantitative aspects of problem solving ability and it further affects on changing problem orientations. These results imply that depressive mood itself affects on problem solving regardless of social skills. In the second experiment, response to general problem situations and special problem situations were compared to see any differences exists in problem solving abilities depending on problem situations. Twenty-two nondepressed and twenty-four depressed college students were participated as the subjects. The result shows that both main effect between groups and situations and interaction effect in those two variables are statistically significant in general problem situations but in special situations. Its can be said that the same response pattern is used by depressive persons in general situation as that of undepressed persons use in special situation. The finding of this study suggest that inability to solve social problems of depressive persons may be originated from cognitive distortion at the problem orientation stage.