Emotional and social real-life problem-solving thinking in adolescent and adult psychiatric patients.

The ability of adult and adolescent psychiatric patients to solve emotional problems such as anxiety and depression as well as problems that arise within the social sphere was examined, as was the question of whether the abilities to solve problems in the emotional and social spheres are related. With IQ partialled out, patients and controls did not differ on emotional problem-solving ability, but did differ on social problem-solving ability. Emotional problem-solving ability was found to be related to intelligence, while social problem-solving ability was not. Emotional problem-solving may require more abstract ability than social problem-solving, and normals may need only social problem-solving for adjustment.     

Depression, problem-solving ability, and problem-solving appraisals.

Behavioral analytic methods were used to create a college student version of the Means Ends Problem Solving Procedure (MEPS). This instrument then was administered with measures of perceived problem-solving ability to depressed and nondepressed students to determine whether differences exist in both problem-solving ability and problem-solving appraisal. Analyses revealed that depressed subjects had more negative expectations and lower appraisals of their problem-solving ability. However, the groups did not differ in terms of the actual quality of their behavioral solutions to interpersonal, intrapersonal, and emotional problem situations. The results are interpreted as support for the role of cognitive factors in depression and problem-solving across a range of problem-solving situations.     

Interpersonal problem-solving in depressed students

This study investigated whether depressed students suffer from a deficit in interpersonal problem-solving and attempted to specify the hypothesized deficit using a qualitative analysis of problem-solving strategies. Twenty depressed students were compared with 20 nondepressed controls with respect to the strategies they developed on a Situation Specific Problem-Solving Inventory. Results supported the hypothesis of a problem-solving deficit in depressed students. Although depressed students seemed to have an adequate definition of the problem and the target, they showed a significant lack of action-oriented strategies.