Emotional stroop interference for depressionrelated stimuli in a United Arab Emirates student population

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Social Behavior and Personality

Publication Date

6-17-2010

Abstract

A bilingual Arabic-speaking student population performed an emotional Stroop task designed to assess the interference effects of depressive stimuli. The aim was to replicate the findings of previous studies with English-speaking participants in which slower color-naming responses were reported for depression-related stimuli, with speed negatively correlated with increasing levels of depressive symptomatology. We used repeated measures design measuring any slowing of naming for the emotional words, while Pearson's r was used to explore the relationship between emotional Stroop performance decrease and extent of depressive symptoms. University students (N = 261) completed a computerized, Arabic-language version of the emotional Stroop task, along with a questionnaire (the Beck Depression Inventory) measure of depressive symptoms. The response time differential for depression related (RT depressive - RT normal), but not neutral (RT neutral - RT normal), words were positively correlated with depressive symptom scores. The findings were consistent with studies reporting mood-congruent information processing biases in English-speaking populations. The emotional Stroop task may prove useful as a culturally-neutral adjunct in the implicit assessment of depressive symptoms or vulnerabilities. © Society for Personality Research (Inc.).

ISSN

0301-2212

Publisher

Scientific Journal Publishers

Volume

38

Issue

5

First Page

597

Last Page

604

Disciplines

Life Sciences

Keywords

Color identification, Depression-related stimuli, Emotional stroop task, United Arab Emirates

Scopus ID

77953463255

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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