[Mood and social information processing in depressive disorders].

Informative and directive functions of mood in judgments of well-being were explored in both depressed and non-depressed subjects by using the weather as a natural mood manipulation. Non-depressives reported higher well-being on sunny than on rainy days. The reverse was true for depressives, who tended to report higher well-being, and were more optimistic about their future well-being, on rainy than on sunny days. That is, depressives tended to report lower well-being when they felt bad "despite" salient positive situational influences (sunny weather), and higher well-being when they could attribute their negative feelings to the weather. These results are consistent with a social information processing approach to depression. In contrast to purely cognitive models of depression this framework provides an account for naturally occurring mood swings and recognizes the contribution of mood to the maintainance of depression.