Self-defining memories and self-concept clarity: A comparative study of depressed patients, bipolar patients and healthy subjects

Depressed and bipolar patients suffer from autobiographical memory (AM) deficits. For instance, depressed patients present an overgeneralisation and a mood congruence biases. Indeed, these patients seem to have difficulties to recall specific and positive memories. The present study focusses on a particular kind of memories: the self-defining memories (SDMs). SDMs are highly pertinent for self-building: they help to define in the most clearly way our perception of ourselves. Because SDMs have not been studied a lot since yet in these two disorders, our goal is to assess the impact of general AM biases on SDMs. Then, the present study pursues two main aims:

1) To assess SDM’s characteristics,
2) To assess the relationship between SDM and self-concept clarity.

To reach our objective, depressed and bipolar patients are compared to healthy subjects. Participants are asked to complete SDMs exercises that are recalling six important events which happened in their life. These SDMs are assessed on four variables: specificity, impact, meaning making, contain. Self-concept clarity and mood are also assessed. Until now, 17 depressed patients, 16 bipolar patients and 18 healthy controls participate in this study. Preliminary results do not highlight difference between our groups on specificity. Marginal effects appear for meaning making with healthy subjects recalling more meaning making events. Results show that depressed patients present a mood congruence. The final results will be presented during the convention, as data-collection is on-going and will end in April. Experimental and clinical implications of our results will be discussed.