Abstracts

Depression as an Aid to Rational Thinking

Muk-Yan Wong Hang-Seng Management College, HK

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” (David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature)

The dichotomy between rationality and emotion has long been acknowledged before Hume’s famous maxim. In particular, depressive mood disorders, which DSM-IV lists as one of the most dominant causes of suicide, are widely regarded as a hindrance of rational thinking.

Using a well-known economic task, the Ultimatum Game (UG), Harlé et al. (2010)’s experiment of the decision-making of depressed patients challenges the received view. In UG, one subject (proposers) is asked to make an offer to another subject (responders) concerning how to split $10 between them. If the responder accepts the offer, the money will be split as proposed; if declines, both responder and proposer receive nothing. Patients of depression were assigned as responders and were told that a certain percentage of the revenue they made in the game will be given to them afterward to make sure that they would try their best to maximize their profit. A rational responder will accept any non-zero offer, fair (5:5) or unfair (1:9), as it is always better than no gain at all. Surprisingly, the result indicated that, compared to non-depressed subjects, depressed patients showed higher level of anger and disgust upon receiving unfair offers yet a higher acceptance rate of unfair offers, which demonstrated their superiority in making rational decisions.

Why would depressed patients be more willing to accept unfair yet rational offers that they found irritating and disgusting? I propose that it may be caused by the influence of depression to one’s attention. First, the direction of the attention of depressed subjects is found to be internal, i.e. they tend to focus on themselves rather than the external environment. (Forgas, 1994.) Being highly sensitive to their own emotions, they may have a better chance to analyze their anger and disgust towards an unfair offer more cautiously and thoroughly, which allow them to regulate the emotions accordingly. Second, the scope of their attention is narrow, i.e. they tend to overlook the “big-picture” and focus on a limited aspect of the current problem. (Murray, Sujan, Hirt, & Sujan, 1990; Forgas & Fiedler, 1996.) Upon receiving an unfair offer, they might not realize that there were various ways to deal with the unfairness, e.g. be more optimistic and hope for a better offer in the next round, reject even a slightly unfair offer to show one’s determination, etc. It may appear to them that the main barrier to maximize one’s gain is the negative emotions towards the unfair yet rational offer, and the only solution is to regulate these emotions. These pessimistic thoughts, which were facilitated by depression, ironically prepared them for a better control of their other emotions, which may eventually allow them to make a more rational decision.

I conclude that the complexity of the influence of depression to rationality should not be underestimated. By affecting the direction and scope of our attention, depression may actually aid rather than hinder our rational decision-making process.