Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Over the past several decades, many studies have been conducted
investigating the relationship between social problem solving and depression.
For convenience, we group our discussion of this body of research according
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to the method of assessing social problem solving that was used, because
the majority of investigations used one of the following three problem-
solving measures: Means-Ends Problem-Solving Procedure (Platt & Spivack,
1975), Problem-Solving Inventory (Heppner, 1988), or the Social Problem-
Solving Inventory—Revised (D'Zurilla, Nezu, &. Maydeu-Olivares, 2002).
Probleni'Solving Inventory
Three studies that included other measures have also found a significant
relationship between problem solving and depression. Because they were
not focusing on real-life problem-solving, Dobson and Dobson (1981) incor-
porated an impersonal problem-solving task to assess problem-solving style.
Their results suggested that depressed, versus nondepressed, college students
evidenced various problem-solving deficits and an overall conservative
problem-solving style. Goodman, Gravitt, and Kaslow (1995) used a measure
that requests individuals to generate effective solutions in response to three
hypothetical peer conflict situations and found that children providing less
effective alternative solutions also reported higher levels of depressive
symptoms.
To evaluate depression-related differences in social problem solving,
Nezu and Ronan (1987) conducted two investigations—one using a measure
of the effectiveness of solution ideas generated to a series of hypothetical
problems and one using a measure of decision making in which participants
were asked to choose the most effective solution among a group regarding
a series of hypothetical problems. Results of this investigation found that
depressed college students performed significantly worse on both problems-
solving tasks compared with their nondepressed counterparts.
CONCLUSION
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