We’ve known for
quite a while that depressed people appear to have a more realistic perception
of their importance, reputation, locus of control, and abilities than those who
are not depressed. In fact this depressive realism was something the French
philosopher Voltaire dealt with as early as 1759 in his novel Candide: Or,
Optimism.
New research led
by the University of Hertfordshire shows that depressed people are more
accurate when it comes to time estimation than their happier peers.
In the study,
volunteers gave verbal estimates of the length of different time intervals of
between two and sixty-five seconds and they also produced their own time
intervals. For non-depressed people, their verbal time interval estimations
were too high; while their own production of times in the same range were too
low. In contrast, the mildly-depressed people were accurate in both their
verbal time estimates and also their own production times.
It’s said that the
findings may help to shed light on how people with depression can be treated.
People with depression are often encouraged to check themselves against
reality, but maybe this timing skill can help in the treatment of
mildly-depressed people. These findings may also link to successful mindfulness
based treatments for depression which focus on encouraging present moment
awareness.
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