State Psychological Reactance to Depression Public Service Announcements Among People With Varying Levels of Depressive Symptomatology.

Campaigns seeking to help people with depression can be effective, but they can also backfire. Psychological reactance is proposed as a partial explanation. Two experimental studies examined the effect of two depression messages (i.e., autonomy-supportive language, controlling language) for participants (n = 2027, n = 777) with varying levels of depressive symptomatology. For Study 1, two versions of a print public service announcement about seeking help for depression served as the experimental stimulus. Study 2 used an existing video public service announcement about seeking help for depression, but the text was altered to create the two conditions. In both studies, increased depressive symptomatology was associated with reduced help-seeking attitudes and intentions, as well as greater state reactance to a public service announcement about depression. Increased state reactance mediated the relationship between increased depressive symptomology and unfavorable help-seeking outcomes. Further, across the two studies, participants with high levels of depressive symptomatology who were exposed to the autonomy-supportive language ad reported either as much, or more, state reactance than participants with high levels of depressive symptomatology who were in the control condition. These results warn that language perceived as autonomy-supportive by people without depression might be perceived as controlling among people with depression.