If you're ever asked to participate in a study, realize they're going to be lying to you.

Are you sad but wise?

I'm Scott Ott with Bill Whittle and Stephen Green.

This episode of Right Angle is brought to you by the members at Bill Whittle.com.

And gentlemen, I read of a study that attempted to replicate a former study that's considered a landmark in

psychology that was conducted in 1979, where they basically tested people who were self-proclaimed

depressed people and other people who were self-proclaimed as not being depressed.

And the depressed people predicted

or said that the results of the study, that their depressed nature led them to believe that they

didn't have any control over the events in their lives or the actions that they took and what

happened as a result of that. And so for years, this has been taught in introductory psychology classes as something called

depressive realism or the sadder but wiser thesis.

In other words, depression is a gift.

And the great benefit of that gift is that you have a much more realistic view of life, unlike those

unreasonably optimistic people who are biased because of their rosy view of the way that

things might come out. Stephen Green, I thought this was interesting because the new study

basically said there were no strong correlations in either direction.

And a 2012 aggregation of 75 other studies basically said the same thing.

There was minimal impact of somebody being depressed as far as their view of whether they could control events and that any results that were seen may have

had to do with the design of the studies. However, this view has kind of infected itself into the

culture. I mean, that original 1979 study has been quoted and cited by some 2,000 scholars since then.

And it has been almost like an article of faith in the culture that depressed people are

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