It seems to me—and I’m a depressive—that even if depressed people really do have more accurate self-assessment, your third option is still the most likely.
One recurrent theme on this site is that humans are prone to indulge cognitive biases which _make them happy_. We try to avoid the immediate hedonic penalty of admitting errors, forseeing mistakes, and so on. We judge by the availability heuristic, not by probability, when we imagine a happy result like winning the lottery.
When I’m in a depressed state, I literally _can’t_ imagine a happy result. I imagine that my all plans will fail and striving will be useless.
This is still not a rational state of mind. It’s not _inherently_ more accurate. But it’s a state of mind that’s inherently more resistant to certain specific errors—such as over-optimistic probability assessment or the planning fallacy.
These errors of optimism are common, especially in self-assessment. Which might well be the reason depressed people make more accurate self-assessments—humans as a whole have a cognitive bias to personal overconfidence.
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But it’s also inherently more resistant to optimistic conclusions, _even when they’re backed by the evidence_.
(It’s more rational to be accurate and sad than delusional and happy—because happiness based on delusion frequently crashes into real-world disasters, whereas if you’re accurate and sad you can _use_ the accuracy to reduce the things you’re sad about.)
It seems to me—and I’m a depressive—that even if depressed people really do have more accurate self-assessment, your third option is still the most likely.
One recurrent theme on this site is that humans are prone to indulge cognitive biases which _make them happy_. We try to avoid the immediate hedonic penalty of admitting errors, forseeing mistakes, and so on. We judge by the availability heuristic, not by probability, when we imagine a happy result like winning the lottery.
When I’m in a depressed state, I literally _can’t_ imagine a happy result. I imagine that my all plans will fail and striving will be useless.
This is still not a rational state of mind. It’s not _inherently_ more accurate. But it’s a state of mind that’s inherently more resistant to certain specific errors—such as over-optimistic probability assessment or the planning fallacy.
These errors of optimism are common, especially in self-assessment. Which might well be the reason depressed people make more accurate self-assessments—humans as a whole have a cognitive bias to personal overconfidence.
-
But it’s also inherently more resistant to optimistic conclusions, _even when they’re backed by the evidence_.
(It’s more rational to be accurate and sad than delusional and happy—because happiness based on delusion frequently crashes into real-world disasters, whereas if you’re accurate and sad you can _use_ the accuracy to reduce the things you’re sad about.)