The Upshot of Feeling Down

More people are talking openly about depression now than ever (even celebrities like Catherine Zeta-Jones are fessing up to severe emotional disorders like bipolar disease). It’s uplifting to see that we’ve created a better support system for people who experience emotional and mental health problems — a far from negligible portion of the population — but at the end of the day, it’s hard to see depression as anything but a downer. If we could eradicate it, we would. Or would we? According to a new study, there’s an upshot to being down, at least for anyone who’s experienced depression firsthand: Researchers found that depressed people perform better on sequential decision task tests than non-depressed people, exhibiting a possible positive side-effect of mental health disorders.

The study, published in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, enrolled volunteers who were either clinically depressed, recovering from depression, or not depressed at all, and asked them to play a computer game that simulated a job-hiring process. The depressed volunteers showed greater cognitive stamina and ultimately chose better hiring strategies than non-depressed volunteers, who looked at fewer applicants on average before making a decision.

Of course, we wouldn’t trade our mental health for better job hiring skills, but for anyone who is experiencing or has experienced mental health issues, the study does show that there might actually be an upshot to all the difficulty and gloom. Plus, understanding the effects of depression may aid psychologists in successfully treating patients.

Photo: PSFK