Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Depression

Abstract

Social psychologists fighting prejudice and clinical psychologists fighting depression have long been separated by the social–clinical divide, unaware that they were facing a common enemy. Stereotypes about others leading to prejudice (e.g., Devine, 1989) and schemas about the self leading to depression (e.g., A. T. Beck, 1967) are fundamentally the same type of cognitive structure. According to the integrated perspective on prejudice and depression, negative stereotypes (i.e., schemas) are activated in a Source, who expresses prejudice toward the Target, causing the Target to experience depression. This linking of prejudice and depression (i.e., “comorbid” prejudice and depression) can occur at the societal level (e.g., Nazis’ prejudice causing Jews’ depression), the interpersonal level (e.g., an abuser’s prejudice causing an abusee’s depression), and the intrapersonal level (e.g., a person’s self-prejudice causing his or her depression). The integrated perspective addresses several longstanding paradoxes, controversies, and questions; generates new areas of inquiry; and spotlights specific methods and findings that have direct cross-disciplinary applications in the battle against prejudice and depression. Ironically, some interventions developed by depression researchers may be especially useful against prejudice, and some interventions developed by prejudice researchers may be especially useful against depression.