An Intervention to Correct Dualistic Reasoning About the Effectiveness of Psychotherapy for Biologically Caused Mental Disorders

The goal of this clinical trial is to test in three samples, including sample 1: lay people without reported depression symptoms, sample 2: lay people with reported depression symptoms and sample 3: mental health clinicians. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1) do each of these populations show a bias against psychotherapy wherein they judge psychotherapy to be less effective, relative to baseline ratings, when a mental illness (i.e., depression) is attributed to biological factors, 2) whether an intervention emphasizing the neurobiological effects of psychotherapy can remove this bias against psychotherapy for biologically-caused mental disorders, and 3) whether this intervention is more effective compared to an active control intervention that emphasizes the effectiveness of psychotherapy, but not its neurobiological effects. Participants will * rate the effectiveness of psychotherapy for depression before and after learning about the biological causes of depression * be assigned to one of three conditions: 1) an intervention condition where participants will receive a brief reading passage (approximately 126 words in length) providing psychoeducation about how psychotherapy changes the brain of an individual with depression, or 2) an active control condition where participants will receive a reading passage (approximately 115 words) emphasizing the effectiveness of psychotherapy, or 3) a control condition where they will receive no additional materials * as a secondary outcome, participants will also rate the effectiveness of medication for depression, before and after learning about the biological causes of depression