Ulrich von Hecker, Grzegorz Sedek

• Three studies examined the processes of mental model generation after pre-exposure to uncontrollability and in a depressive state. The main purpose of the experiments was to test the implications of the cognitive exhaustion model applying an explicit conceptualization of social mental models and a process tracing method developed by von Hecker (1997). An experimental situation was created for observation of consecutive, rule-based construction steps as a function of input diagnosticity, and for the quality assessment of the constructed mental model. The findings showed that participants pre-exposed to uncontrollability, as well as depressed students, were able as were controls, to identify rule-relevant information needed for model construction. However, they were less able than controls to engage in more cognitively demanding and generative step of processing , i.e. in integrating the pieces of input information into a coherent mental model of sentiment relations.