According to Beck's (1967; 1976) cognitive triad theory of depression, active depressogenic schemas produce a pattern of thinking that is characterized by a negative view of the self, the world, and the future. The present researcher used a primed lexical decision task to measure the extent to which affective material is activated when participants are subliminally exposed to words pertaining to components of this triad.; Seventy St. John's University undergraduate students participated in this study. In an effort to implicitly investigate the cognitive triad theory of depression, the task required participants to make lexical decisions about real words and nonwords, after subliminal exposure to words having to do with the self (e.g., Identity), the world (e.g., Peers ), the future (e.g., Tomorrow), and neutral household items (e.g., Couch). Target letter strings consisted of categorized positive (e.g., bliss), negative (e.g., torture), and neutral (e.g., Submarine) words.; Reaction times were recorded in order to assess how the speed of lexical decisions varied as a function of subliminal exposure to words pertaining to the cognitive triad. The predictability of BDI-II scores by the lexical decision task was compared to predictions by the Cognitive Triad Inventory (CTI), which measures explicit cognitions about the self, the world, and the future.; In order to find a measure or set of measures that represented the psychometric properties of the lexical decision task, reaction times were empirically explored. Exploratory analyses revealed that priming did not occur on lexical decision task trials. Rather, reaction times varied only as a function of target word valence, with subjects responding faster to positive and negative words than to neutral words. Regression analyses indicated that biases on the lexical decision task were not correlated with severity of depressive symptoms, as measured by the BDI-II. Depressive symptomatology was instead significantly predicted by scores on the CTI, with a correlation coefficient of r = -.615 between total BDI and total CTI scores.; These results are discussed within the context of methodological limitations of the study. As well, recommendations for future investigations are provided.
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