Alloy (born Lauren Helene Bersh; November 22, 1953)[1] is an American psychologist, recognized for her research on mood disorders.
Along with colleagues Lyn Abramson and Gerald Metalsky, she developed the hopelessness theory of depression.
[1][2] Her graduate school mentors were psychologists Martin Seligman and Richard Solomon.
[1][2] Her research focuses on cognitive, interpersonal, and biopsychosocial processes in the onset and maintenance of depression and bipolar disorder.
[4] In the late 1970s, Alloy and her longtime collaborator Abramson demonstrated that depressed individuals held a more accurate view than their non-depressed counterparts in a test which measured illusion of control.