Research has pointed to important psychopathological differences between persistent and episodic depressive disorders. Here, we tested the hypothesis that people with persistent rather than episodic depression have difficulty revising established expectations in response to novel positive information. In terms of underlying mechanisms, we predicted that these differences between the two subtypes would be related to the engagement in cognitive immunization (i.e. devaluing expectation-disconfirming positive information).

Prior to their psychotherapeutic treatment, 54 outpatients with persistent depressive disorder and 102 outpatients with episodic major depressive disorder completed an experimental task. In this task, participants watched other patients’ reports of positive effects of psychotherapy. Our primary outcome was change in treatment expectations from before to after watching the positive reports.

Overall, people with persistent depression had lower treatment expectations than people with episodic depression. In addition, they changed their treatment expectations less in response to other patients’ positive reports. This effect was greater for psychotherapy outcome expectations than for role expectations. The lack of expectation change in persistent depression relative to episodic depression was particularly pronounced in a cognitive immunization-promoting experimental condition.

The results indicate that people with persistent depression have difficulty adjusting their treatment expectations in response to positive information on psychotherapy. This may be a risk factor for poor treatment outcome. The results regarding cognitive immunization suggest that for people with persistent depression, slight doubts about the value of information on the positive effects of psychotherapy may be sufficient to prevent them from integrating this information.