Chuck Bryan

You're a realist.

And this came from a study in the 1970s by psychologists Lauren Alloy and Lynn Yvonne Abramson, where it's kind of a funky study, but they had participants push a button and then judged how effective that might be for causing a light to go on.

Like, I'm going to press this button, but I don't think it's going to do anything.

Or man, this room is going to light up when I press this button.

Right.

Exactly.

And they said that people with depression tended to more accurately predict whether that button was going to turn the light on or not.

Right.

Yeah.

And so they extrapolated that to say, like, well, you know, that means that people with depression or depressive symptoms are they have just a greater handle on the reality of reality.

Basically, they're less likely to make wild predictions about their success.

And so they understand reality better.

And this was a landmark study that people just immediately put into the pop psychology grind because it's just so contrarian.

It's delicious.

And it's also one of those landmark studies that people have loved to kind of try to take shots at.

And apparently it's not very well replicated.

Yeah.

I don't know its status right now, but it seems like it hasn't been debunked and it's not unfounded as far as the field of psychology is concerned, but it doesn't seem like it's as golden as it once was.

To like a dented landmark?

Yeah, I think that's a great one.