うつ病ラベルが他者の言語・非言語コミュニケーションへ与える影響

抄録

　The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of the diagnosis of depression (a depression label) on verbal and nonverbal communication with others. In this study, a situation was created in which a subject listened to personal problems described by a hitherto unknown conversational partner. Independent variables were “the depression label,” which conveys to the subject that the conversational partner suffers from depression, and “conveying depression,” which is the conversational partner exhibiting depression. Dependent variables were verbal and non-verbal indices for the subject. The verbal indices used were topic language (topics of conversation) and conversational management language (language indicating or eliciting a response), and the nonverbal indices used were smiling, gaze, silence, speech, and distance. Subjects were 40 women. Results indicated that “subjects conversing with a partner labeled with depression” mentioned taking a break more than “subjects conversing with a partner not labeled with depression.” Subjects conversing with a partner who exhibited but was not labeled with depression used less conversational management language than did subjects conversing with a partner who neither exhibited nor was labeled with depression. This work also discusses the effects of a depression label and issues with this study.