"Sadder but Wiser? Maybe Not After All"
That was the headline in the Times. According to the story, "a seminal idea in psychology" has been, for the last forty-odd years, "depressive realism."
We are not talking about clinical depression. We are talking about ordinary gloom. Depressive realism means that people who see the glass half-empty have "a more accurate reading of their ability to affect outcomes" than people who regard themselves as appropriately bubbly.
One response to this revelation, as to any revelation brought to us by behavioral science, is "Duh."
Another response, as to any such revelation, is "Wow! How'd you manage to come up with this one? From a burning bush, was it? Lightning bolt? Or did it just finally hit you that what your dad keeps telling you is a tissue of lies?"
No, no, no. Here's how:
Forty-three years ago, college student volunteers whom researchers classed as either depressed or non-depressed, "based on self-reported symptoms," were given a button and a flashing light.
When asked to what extent they thought they controlled the light when they pressed the button, the mopey students were more accurate than the cheerful ones.
For some reason, the researchers were surprised by this result. But they remained upbeat enough (hmm) to run with it. They parlayed their experiment into the principle of "sadder but wiser": that the consolation of depression is, you aren't living in a silly person's paradise.
Has that principle been cheering up the mopes, all these years? If so, have they become less realistic?
By the way, how good was the button at controlling the light?
"Teacher! Teacher! My button's broke!"
I suppose some effort was made to address these procedural questions at the time. At any rate, according to the Times story, "'sadder but wiser' has been taught to decades of Intro Psych students and cited more than two thousand times by other scholars. It also percolated through our culture."
But now! Here's what has happened:
Another research team has recreated the original experiment. And this team has found "no evidence that depressive symptoms is [is?] tied to greater realism."
So what are we left with?
In my case, a hollow feeling that I can't explain.
Consider what the original experiment's exit interviews should have been like.
Case A.:
"You're pretty realistic with that button. Still consider yourself depressed?"
"I do, yeah. What of it?"
"Ah! You know you're depressed. So you're wiser than -- "
"Yeah, I know I'm depressed. And I know why I'm depressed, because -- "
"Well, heh-heh, I don't know about that -- "
"You're saying if I wasn't depressed, I wouldn't know I wasn't, and wouldn't know why?"
"That's . . . so to speak . . . "
"What a fucked-up world this is!"
Case B.:
"So you say you're not depressed."
"Oh no, not me!"
Mm-hm. Do you realize that your faith in yourself and your button was -- "
"I love my button. Can I take my button home?"
"Uh. Sure, kid."
"Oooooh! This has been so groovy!"
Contrast the new testees.
Case A:
"You thought you figured out what you were supposed to say, didn't you?"
"Nah.Yeah, maybe."
"Well, you didn't."
Case B:
"You thought you figured out what you were supposed to say, didn't you?"
"Noooo -- I just pushed away at that good old button!"
"Grow up, kid."
Want to know my reaction to this whole mess?
Here's what the students were thinking, in the original experiment:
The depressed students thought: "Oh, goody." Ironically. The bright-eyed students thought the same, but they meant it, and their perception was clouded by their tendency to think, "Maybe if I'm really good with the button, I'll get paid more."
The new crop of students, on the other hand -- whether they regarded themselves as depressed or not -- were savvy enough to figure out what the new researchers wanted:
To flip the old researchers. Otherwise, no headline in the Times.
And so much for "sadder but wiser."
Personally, I wish "sadder but wiser" had held up. At least long enough for me to remember the lost lyrics to the song the late Kathy Kamen Goldmark and I wrote once over the phone:
"I'm a Sadder Budweiser Man Today."
My concept. Kept me going for a while.
In other news from the NYT, "Wet in the rain? Maybe not if you wear a raincoat."
As someone with a college degree in "interdisciplinary social science" I got in trouble back then arguing that "social science" is an oxymoron.