Specific content increases acceptance of praise in young adults with depressive symptoms

Introduction: Young adults are often faced with pressures of major life transitions, which may exacerbate the risk of developing depression, and depression features self-devaluation and distorts the perception of social praise. Methods: In this study we manipulated the specificity of social praise to investigate how it would interact with depressive symptoms and thus modulate the emotional and cognitive processing of the feedback in young adults. We engaged young adults with and without depressive symptoms in reading self-referential praise of specific and general content and asked them to rate how pleased they were by the praise and how truly the praise described their attributes. We also measured participants’ mood, self-esteem, social anxiety, and general anxiety. Results: Depressed participants perceived specific praise as more truly describing their attributes than general praise, showing no differences from healthy controls in truthfulness ratings for specific praise while they rated general praise as less pleasant and truthful than control participants. Higher self-esteem and more positive mood were associated with higher truthfulness of praise. Discussion: These findings suggest that specific content of praise may facilitate cognitive reappraisal in young adults with depressive symptoms, thereby highlighting the importance of tailoring praise strategies in psychological interventions for young adults with depressive symptoms.