Term
What is the magnitude of the impact of depression worldwide?
How does it affect an individual? |
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Definition
Depression is one of the most commonly occurring psychopathologies and fourth leading cause of disability and premature death worldwide (Murray & Lopez, 1996).
Affects individuals' emotions, thoughts, sense of self, behaviors, interpersonal relations, physical functioning, biological processes, work productivity, and overall life satisfaction. |
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Term
| List the categories of risk factors for depression |
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Definition
-Negative life events
-Predisposing genetic influences
-Disturbed family environment
-Particular personality traits
-Environmental adversities
-Other emotional and behavioral smptoms and problems
-Cognitive infleunces
-Interpersonal behaviors
-Biological factors |
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Term
| How do we diagnose an episode of depression in childhood and adolescence? |
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Definition
Same as adults but:
-Irritability can be a mood symptom along with "depressed, sad mood and anhedonia"
-Dysthymia only needs a one year duration in youth. |
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Term
| How are dysthymia and depression related in youth? |
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Definition
Research suggests that there is little difference between major depressive disorder and dysthymia in youth in terms of clinical course, impairment, or demographic factors expect that dysthymia tends to precede major depression (Goodman et al., 2000).
Youth with dysthymia and depression exhibit greater impairment. |
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Term
| How do developmental psychopathologists and the DSM-IV-TR have different thoughts on the structure and nature of depression in youth? |
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Definition
DSM-IV-TR assumes that the structure and nature of depression in youth is the same as adults.
Developmental psychopathologists contend that depression may differ given the cognitive, social, emotional and biological changes that transpire over time throughout childhood and adolescence. |
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Term
| Why should we think that the structure and nature of depression in youth differs from that of adults? |
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Definition
-Younger children may not have developed the requisite cognitive, social, emotional, or biological capacities to experience certain typical adult depressive symptoms.
-The causes or consequences of depression may change across different developmental periods. |
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Term
What is the state of the research on the development of depression across the life span?
Should we assume that the structure and nature are the same for children, adolescents, and adults in the meantime? |
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Definition
Little research has systematically addressed whether the symptoms and structure of depression are the same in children, adolescents and adults.
It is premature to conclude that depression is developmentally isomorphic at either the symptom or syndrome level for children, adolescents, and adults (Weiss & Garber, 2003) |
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Term
Describe how children describe symptoms differently than those who are older.
How do symptom reports change as children transition into adolescence? |
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Definition
Young children, especially preschoolers, tend not to report depressed mood or hopelessness and are more likely to describe somatic symptoms.
Report of anhedonia and psychomotor retardation tend to increase as children transition into adolescence. |
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Term
| What are the different ways we may conceptualize depression? |
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Definition
A mood symptom (e.g., sad or unhappy)
A syndrome of mood and other coherent symptoms that statistically go together (e.g., anxious/depressed syndrome)
As a disorder with official criteria and duration that must be met for a diagnosis (e.g., categorical diagnosis in DSM-IV-TR) |
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Term
What is the difference between a dimensional and categorical view of depression?
How does the literature suggest that we conceptualize it? |
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Definition
Dimensionally: Depression differs quantitatively by degree (e.g., individuals are more or less depressed) and there are no boundaries between being normal and depressed.
Studies show that depression is more dimensional, but there is a question of whether more extreme forms of depression are qualitatively different from normal mood.
Evidence suggests that depression varies along a continuum of affective severity. |
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Term
| What is the difference between using community and psychiatric clinic samples of depression? |
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Definition
Samples drawn from psychiatric clinics may be:
-Actively seeking treatment
-Exhibiting greater severity
-Reveal higher comorbidity |
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Term
What are some limitations of cross-sectional studies?
Describe a limitation for a cross-sectional study on depression in terms of age-cohort effects. |
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Definition
Cross-sectional studies often average together individuals from different age groups, so it is difficult to ascertain when the rates of depressing are rising throughout the life course.
There are age cohort effects, such that individuals born more recently (e.g., during the Vietnam War era) exhibit higher rates of depression compared to those from older generations (e.g., The Great Depression). |
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Term
What percentage of adolescents report significant subclinical levels of depression?
What is the implication of this finding? |
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Definition
20-50% of adolescents report significant subclinical levels of depression (Kessler et al., 2001)
Depressed mood carries risk for later depression. |
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Term
How do depression rates change across the life-span?
Describe the lifetime prevalence rates of depression for pre-adolescent school-age children.
Describe the lifetime prevalence rate of major depression for 15 to 18 year olds. |
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Definition
The rates of depression are generally low in children and increase to near-adult prevalence levels in adolescence.
Pre-adolescent school-age children tend to have low lifetime prevalence rates of depression (less than 3%).
The lifetime prevalence of major depression for 15 to 18 year olds is 14% (Kessler et al., 1994) |
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Term
When do individuals usually experience their first depression?
What is adult depression usually preceded by?
By the age of 26, what percentage of adults had already experienced depression as a child or adolescent? |
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Definition
Most individuals experience their first depression sometime during late childhood through adolescence.
Adult depression is typically preceded by youth depression
Cohen et al., 2003: 75% of adults at age 26 had already had a depressive disorder in childhood or adolescence. |
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Term
What percentage of adolescent girls and boys tend to exhibit high levels of depressed mood?
Describe how the report of depression differs between girls and boys in childhood and adolescence.
What is the female to male ratio of depression from adolescence to throughout adulthood? |
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Definition
Approximately 25% to 40% of adolescent girls exhibit high levels of depressed mood compared to 20% to 35% of adolescent boys.
More boys than girls are depressed in childhood, but more girls and boys become clinically depressed after age 12-13.
The female to male ratio from adolescence to throughout adulthood is 2:1. |
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Term
At what developmental stage are gender differences in depression more likely to emerge?
Is age or developmental stage a better prediction of depression onset?
Girls who start what earlier are more likely to become depressed? |
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Definition
Gender difference in depression emerges at Tanner Stage III and was a better predictor than age alone (Angold et al., 1998).
Girls who start puberty earlier are more likely to become depressed. |
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Term
| What are the racial/ethnic differences among adults on the development of depression? |
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Definition
There is no consensus on ethnic differences in depression.
Kessler et al., 1994: Aferican Americans were significantly less depressed compared with whites or Latinos. |
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Term
Describe the continuity of depression from childhood into adulthood, compared to the continuity of depression from adolescent into adulthood.
What are the implications of these differences? |
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Definition
Depressed mood at younger ages carries risk for development of depressive disorder later in life.
Compared with the continuity of depression from childhood into adulthood, there is much stronger continuity for depression from adolescence into adulthood.
There are important differences between depression arising during childhood compared to depression arising in adolescence. |
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Term
Describe the recurrence of depression
-rates
-intervals between recurrence |
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Definition
Depression is a chronic or recurrent disorder
-Approximately 50% of individuals with a diagnosis of depression will experience recurrence within 2 years
-80% will experience recurrence within 5 to 7 years
Once individuals have had multiple recurrences, their time to experience the next recurrence decreases with each additional recurrence. |
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Term
What disorders is depression most likely to co-occur with?
Children and early adolescents are more likely to have a co-occurring diagnosis of what disorder?
Older adolescents are more likely to exhibit co-occurrence of what disorder? |
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Definition
Depression commonly co-occurs with other disorders, especially anxiety and disruptive behavioral disorders.
Children and early adolescents are more likely to have a co-occurring diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder and depression
Older adolescents are more likely to exhibit comorbid eating disorders and substance abuse problems. |
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Term
| Describe the temporality between depression and anxiety disorders, as well as externalizing behaviors. |
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Definition
Anxiety often precedes the development of depressive symptoms or disorder (Avenoli et al., 2001)
Earlier externalizing behaviors tend to predict later depressive symptoms (Curren & Bollen, 2001) |
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Term
| Developmental patterns of comorbidity suggest what various plausible causal models? |
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Definition
The developmental patterns of comorbidity suggest various plausible causal models:
-The common cause hypothesis: Some etiological factors may be shared among co-occurring disorders.
-The etiologically specific-cause hypothesis: Some etiological vulnerability factors or types of stressors may be relatively specific to a particular disorder
-The disorder causal hypothesis: Elevations in symptoms of one disorder (anxiety) may directly contribute to elevations in another disorder) later in the life course. |
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Term
| What aspects of depression should theoretical models be able to explain? |
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Definition
Any comprehensive theoretical model of depression should be able to explain the following:
1. Depression is a common disorder
2. Rates of depression rise dramatically in adolescence
3. The gender difference in depression emerges in early adolescence and remains throughout adulthood
4. Depression tends to be a continuous and recurrent disorder starting in adolescence
5. Depression is comorbid with many other psychopathological disorders
6. The latent structure of depression is dimensional |
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Term
| Describe the relationship between having a stressful negative life event and depression. |
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Definition
Stressful negative life events play a substantial contributory role in the development of depression from childhood through adulthood.
Almost all individuals with a depressive disorder encountered at least one significant negative life event in the month prior to the onset of depression (Goodyer, 2001)
Experiencing stressors precedes the initial elevation, recurrence, and exacerbation of depression (Goodyer, 2000) |
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Term
Describe the directionality of stress-depression.
What is the stress-generation hypothesis? |
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Definition
The stress-depression relationship is not static and unidirectional, but transactional.
Stress-generation hypothesis: Some individuals, because of personality characteristics or behaviors, such as their being depressed, generate stressful circumstances and additional events for themselves, and these can then advance to further increases in depression (Hammen, 1991).
Negative events may be a cause and consequence of depression. |
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Term
List examples of stressor subtypes.
Which stressors are associated with risk for depression and onset of depression? |
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Definition
Examples of subtypes of stressors:
-Danger to the self
-Danger to others
-Personal disappointment
-Loss
Personal disappointment and loss releated to elevated risk for depression (Goodyer, 2001)
Humiliation and loss linked with onset of depression (Kendler et al. 2003) |
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Term
List some examples of interpersonal stressors.
How do interpersonal stressors compare with other types of stressors in the relationship with depression? |
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Definition
Interpersonal stressors:
-Romantic relationship breakups
-Peer rejection
-Disrupted friendships
Strong relationship between depression and interpersonal stressors compared to achievement stressors. |
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Term
| What are some developmental changes that occur in the frequency and types of stressors experienced across the life span? |
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Definition
Rise in uncontrollable negative life events after 13, which parallels rise in depressive symptoms throughout adolescence (Ge et al., 1994).
Girls exhibit a significantly greater increase in stressors after age 13 than do boys, and this developmental timeline for the gender difference in stressors matches the emergence of the gender difference in depression (Ge et al., 1994) |
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Term
| Describe the kinds of interpersonal stressors the children, adolescents and adults tend to report. |
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Definition
Preadolescent children tend to report stressors within the family.
Adolescents tend to report interpersonal and peer-related stressors.
adults tend to report achievement and work-related events
(Rudolph & Hammen, 1999) |
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Term
| Describe the role of transitional periods the development of depression. |
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Definition
| Increasing trajectory of stressors begins around puberty, which is a transitional period in development, and transitions frequently are associated with elevated emotional distress and increases in stress (Caspi & Moffitt, 1991) |
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Term
| Because most individuals with depression report negative life events, should we assume negative life events are able to predict the development of depression? Why or why not? |
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Definition
Not everyone who experiences negative life events becomes depressed, despite a majority of those who have depression have experienced at least one major negative life event.
Only 20%-50% of individuals who experience negative life events develop clinically significant levels of depression (Goodyer et al., 2000). |
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Term
In terms of genetics/family, what is one of the strongest predictors of depression in childhood or adolescence?
What can we NOT determine based on knowledge of family history of depression? |
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Definition
One of the strongest predictors of depression in childhood or adolescence is having a parent with a history of major depression (Beardslee et al., 1998)
Knowledge of family history cannot disentangle whether risk mechanisms are carried through genetic transmission, psychosocial factors associated with growing up in a family with a depressed parent, or both (Goodman & Gotlib, 2002) |
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Term
Describe the heritability estimates of depression.
How do they differ between parent and youth self-ratings of youths' depression?
Describe how heritability of depressive symptoms differ between adolescents and children. |
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Definition
Depression is moderately heritable.
-Heritability estimates for parents' rating of youths' depressive symptoms: 30-80%
-Heritability estimates for youths' self-ratings:15-80%
Depressive symptoms are heritable starting in adolescence (after age 11) and continuing through adulthood, whereas shared common family environment, but not genetic factors, is linked with depression in childhood (rice et al., 2002) |
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Term
Genetic liability for depression is shared for what disorders among youth?
What causes the overlap between depression and anxiety? What is hypothesized to make them differ? |
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Definition
Genetic vulnerability to depression partly overlaps with genetic liability for comorbid symptoms.
-Youth: Genetic liability for depression is shared with that for externalizing conduct problems and anxiety symptoms.
Strong overlap between depression and anxiety is due to shared genetic risk, whereas the disorder specificity for anxiety and depression may best be explained by the unique environments that individuals experience (Kendler et al., 2003) |
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Term
What are gene-environment correlations?
Describe an example of a gene-environment correlation as it relates to kids and their parents. |
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Definition
Some risk factors for depression are moderately heritable.
Gene-environment correlations reflect the fact that genetic and environmental influences are associated, but not independent.
Children exposed to environments associated with their parents' genetic makeup as they grow older (e.g., a passive gene-environment correlation).
Youth choose environments through evocative and active person-environment transactions (e.g., "niche fitting"), which are influenced by the youths' genes as well as their parents' genetic make up. |
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Term
| Describe examples of gene-environment correlations for depression in terms of experiencing negative events. |
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Definition
Liability to experience negative events is partially heritable (Kendler 1993).
Twin study: Depression was associated with exposure to interpersonal negative events (Kendler et al., 1997).
Genetic vulnerabilities increased the risk for depresion and for experiencing stressors for girls after, but not before, puberty. |
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Term
What are gene-environment interactions?
What did Caspi study? |
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Definition
Gene environment interactions refer to the idea that there is differential genetic liability to certain environmental risks.
Caspi et al. (2003): Individuals with one or two copies of the short-allele form of 5-HTT (the genetic vulnerability) and encountered stressors over time experienced the greatest incidence of depression, even compared with adults who experienced equivalent stress levels but were homozygous for the long allele of the 5-HTT promoter. |
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Term
Personality traits linked with what feature are often related to depression?
Define Neuroticism.
Describe correlates of neuroticism as it relates to emotions, thoughts about self, experiences, and ability to cope. |
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Definition
Depression has been linked with personality traits related to negative emotionality.
Neuroticism, or negative emotionality, is the extent to which an individual perceives and experiences the world as threatening or distressing.
Neurotic individuals are more likely to report feeling negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger) more intensely and frequently; suffer from a wide variety of problems; feel inadequate; and experience more stressors (Watson et al., 1994). They lack emotional resilience and strength to overcome daily hassles and more severe uncontrollable traumas. |
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Term
How is the HPA axis related to depression?
What is the vulnerability?
Describe the mechanism and hormones involved. |
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Definition
Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has been implicated as a biological vulnerability to depression.
Stress -> Hypothalamus releases peptides -> Pituitary releases hormones -> Adrenal glands release cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone that allows the body to manage stress effectively. Pituitary also releases growth hormone.
Corticotropin releaing hormone (CRH) and norepinephrine (NE) are the core regulators of the HPA axis. Activation of CRH and NE increases behavior, arousal, and activity and interferes with vegetative functions (e.g., sleep and eating, which comprise depressive symptoms when impaired). |
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Term
Describe the research findings on the HPA axis in children compared to findings among adults.
Describe how growth hormone secretion may be related to depression. |
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Definition
Research in children suggests that depressed and nondepressed children do not differ on baseline cortisol levels (Ryan, 1998).
HPA axis likely develops and matures from childhood through adulthood, so developmental changes in HPA axis response may explain some inconsistencies.
Most studies in children have found blunted secretion of GH in response to biological challenges. Offspring of depressed parents who are at high risk for depression but had not yet experienced clinical depression experienced reduced GH response (Birmaher et al., 2000). |
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Term
| Describe three regions in the brain in which abnormality may result in depression and explain why. |
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Definition
Amygdala mediates fear, anxiety, and emotional memory
Mesolimbic dopamine system involved with reward and pleasure.
Prefrontal cortex helps control behavioral and affective flexibility and is involved with approach/withdrawal systems.
These regions found to be abnormal among individuals with depression |
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Term
| What is the main neurobiological vulnerability for depression? |
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Definition
Asymmetry in electrophysiological activity in resting frontal brain activity has been used to assess a neurobiological vulnerability for depression. It is probably associated with prefrontal cortex dysfunction.
Relative left-frontal underactivity compared with right frontal activity has been associated with depression in adults and may comprise a stable biological vulnerability for depression (Davidson et al., 2002).
Child and infant offspring of depressed mothers, who are at high risk for depression but not yet depressed, revealed left-frontal underactivity. |
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Term
| What are some cognitive vulnerabilities related to depression? |
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Definition
-Depressogenic inferential styles about causes, consequences, and the self (Abramson et al., 1989)
-Dysfunctional attitudes (Beck, 1967)
-Tendency to ruminate in response to depressed mood (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991)
-Self-criticism (Blatt & Zuroff, 1992) |
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Term
| Describe individuals with negative inferential style and dysfunctional attitudes. |
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Definition
A person with a negative inferential style is likely to:
-Attribute negative events to global and stable causes
-To catastrophize the consequences of negative events
-To view himself or herself as flawed or deficient following negative events.
A person with dysfunctional attitudes is likely to think his or her self-worth hinges on being perfect or receiving approval from others. e.g., "I'm worthless unless I'm perfect!" |
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Term
Describe an individual who has the tendency to ruminate.
Describe individuals who tend to self-criticize. |
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Definition
Rumination describes the cognitive process in which intitially mildly dysphoric individuals focus on the meanings and implications of their depressed mood develop enduring and severe depression as a result.
individuals high in self-criticism are preoccupied with issues pertaining to self-definition, competence, and worth. They are prone to view themseles as a failure as well as to feel guilty and experience decreases in self-esteem when not meeting expectations or goals. |
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Term
Describe how prospective research has found depression to be related with cognitive-vulnerabilities.
What is the state of research with child and adolescent populations? |
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Definition
Prospective research with adults shows that depression is predicted by:
-Negative inferential style
-Dysfunctional attitude
-Rumination
-Self-criticism.
Cognitive vulnerabilities interact with stressors to predict depressive symptoms (Hankin et al., 2004).
Research with child and adolescent populations has lagged far behind that of adult populations. |
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Term
| Describe research findings on cognitive-vulnerabilities in adolescents. |
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Definition
Among adolescents:
-A depressogenic attributional style interacts with subsequently occurring negative events to predict increases in depressive symptoms (Hankin et al., 2001)
-Dysfunctional attitudes interact with stress to predict clinical depression (Lewinsohn et al., 2001)
-Rumination is associated with increases in depressive symptoms over time (Schwartz & Koenig, 1996) |
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Term
| Describe research findings on cognitive-vulnerabilities in children. |
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Definition
In child populations, depression is predicted by:
-Depressogenic inferential style (Abela, 2001)
-Dysfunctional attitudes (Abela et al., 2004)
-Rumination (Abela et al., 2002)
-Self-criticism (Abela et al., 2004) |
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Term
| Describe the degree of support in the literature for cognitive vulnerabilities across the life span. |
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Definition
Findings have shown mixed support.
Inconsistencies relate to gender or age.
Degree of support for cognitive vulnerabilities span across the life span because studies have found full, mixed, or lack of support for children, early adolescents, adolescents and adults. |
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Term
| Describe how the inconsistent findings may have risen in terms of considering risk factors. |
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Definition
Researchers have failed to consider possible relationships among the many risk, vulnerability and protective factors proposed across various theories of vulnerability to depression.
It is unlikely that each vulnerability theory is presenting a distinct etiological pathway leading to the development of depression unaffected by the various contributory causes of depression proposed by alternative theories.
The richest examination o vulnerability models will ultimately involve the integration of the various distinct risk, vulnerability and protective factors proposed by empirically supported theories. |
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Term
| What is the most common integrative theoretical approach observed in the literature? |
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Definition
Most common integrative approach: Whether self-esteem buffers individuals who possess cognitive vulnerability factors against experiencing increases in depressive symptoms following the occurrence of negative events.
Dispositional negative inferential style, dysfunctional attitudes, and neuroticism predicted daily depression over time, controlling for other vulnerabilities and initial depression.
Negative explanations made to daily stressors interacted with dispositional negative inferential style and neuroticim, albeit in different ways, to predict individuals' experience of daily depression. |
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Term
| What is another possible explanation about inconsistent findings related to specific cognitive vulnerability theories? |
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Definition
A second possible explanation for past inconsistent findings is that researchers have examined the vulnerability and protective factors proposed within specific theories in isolation.
Example: Most of the research examining hopelessness theory examined each of the three inferential styles separately without considering the possible relationships among them. Inconsistent findings may have resulted because some individuals may have exhibited the negative attributional style, but not others such as the negative inferential styles about consequences and self. |
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Term
| What is the weakest link hypothesis? |
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Definition
"Weakest Link" hypothesis posits that an individual is as vulnerable to depression as his or her most depressogenic inferential style makes him or her (Abela & Sarin, 2002).
Abela and Sarin reported that early adolescents' "weakest links" but not their overall negative inferential styles intereacted with subsequently occurring negative events to predict increases in depressive symptoms. |
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Term
| What implications does the weakest link hypothesis highlight about conducting developmentally oriented research? |
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Definition
The weakest link hypothesis highlights important implications for conducting developmentally oriented research across development.
Research with adults showed that the three aspects of a negative inferential style form one latent factor and are not distinguishable empirically, whereas research children has shown them to be separable. This suggests that these cognitive vulnerabilities may emerge at different points over development. |
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Term
What must first be done to measure cognitive vulnerabilities accurately?
What is the activation hypothesis as it pertains to predicting changes in depressive symptoms? |
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Definition
A third possible explanation for past inconsistent findings is that cognitive vulnerability factors have been measured insufficiently.
Many posited that cognitive vulnerability factors are typically latent cognitive structures or processes that must be activated or primed in order to be assessed accurately.
Activation Hypothesis: Predicting changes in depressive symptoms based on cognitive vulnerability factors depends on whether these vulnerabilities have been activated before they are assessed. |
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Term
| How does measurement relate to cognitive vulnerabilities research? |
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Definition
Researchers examining cognitive vulnerabilities with youth have tended to assess cognitive vulnerability factors using age-inappropriate measures with poor psychometric properties.
A history of poor measurement of cognitive vulnerability factors has likely contributed to inconsistent findings. |
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Term
| What is the developmental hypothesis? |
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Definition
Developmental Hypothesis (Turner & Cole, 1994): Cognitive vulnerability to depression emerges only during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence when children acquire the ability to engage in abstract reasoning and formal operational thought.
Negative cognitions play a role in triggering depressive symptoms in younger children, but such cognitions are viewed as more likely to be a direct consequence of negative events themselves and subsequent environmental feedback rather than the product of a preexisting vulnerability factor.
*Hypothesis has been disproven* |
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Term
| What is a limitation of most interpersonal vulnerability research for depression? |
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Definition
The majority of research examining the relationship between interpersonal vulnerability factors and depressive symptoms has been cross-sectional in nature.
Difficult to draw conclusions. |
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Term
| Describe the interpersonal vulnerability hypothesis proposed by Joiner et al. (1999) |
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Definition
Joiner et al. (1999):Excessive reassurance seeking serves as a vulnerability factor to depression.
Supported by studies in adult samples.
Excessive reassurance seeking interacts with negative events to predict increases in depressive symptoms over time.
Reassurance seeking plays a role in the social transmission of depression, with individuals who exhibit high levels of reassurance seeking more likely to develop depression when interacting with a depressed partner or roommate compared to low-reassurance seeking individuals. |
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Term
What is the state of excessive reassurance seeking research among youth?
Reassurance seeking has been found to interact with what in children and early adolescents with a past history of clinically significant depressive episode? |
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Definition
There is less research examining the relationship between excessive reassurance seeking and depressive symptoms in youth.
Results from cross-sectional studies have been found to be consistent (Joiner, 1999).
High levels of reassurance seeking have been found to predict a past history of clinically significant depressive episodes in children and early adolescents exhibiting an insecure attachment style to their parents (Abela et al., 2002). |
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Term
| What is the effect of age on the reassurance seeking vulnerability and depression relationship? |
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Definition
Research by Abela et al. (2004) has suggested that reassurance seeking is normative among younger children, but becomes a vulnerability after early adolescence when lower levels of reassurance seeking become normative.
Age therefore modifies the strength of associated between excessive reassurance seeking and depressive symptoms, with reassurance seeking being more strongly associated with depressive symptoms in older children. |
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Term
| What is the relationship between dependency and depressive symptoms across the life span? |
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Definition
High levels of dependency are associated with greater increases in depressive symptoms following increases in stress in adult populations.
Few studies have examined the relationship between dependency and depressive symptoms in youth. Cross sectional studies have shown that higher levels of dependency are associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in adolescents but not children.
In prospective studies, few have found a relationship between dependency and depression in child and adolescent samples. It might be normative for younger populations. |
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Term
What is social support?
What types of social support are there?
Who might those providing social support include? |
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Definition
Social support is widely viewed as a multidimensional concept and is commonly defined as the availability of a network of people on whom a person can rely in times of need.
Different types of social support: Emotional, financial, informational, or enacted.
It might include family members, friends, significant others, and colleagues. |
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Term
| Describe research findings on the relationship between social support and depression in children and adolescents. |
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Definition
Evidence that this buffers against stress across the developmental spectrum (Kashini et al., 1999).
Depressed children compared with anxious children had lower satisfaction levels with their social networks.
Children who are higher functioning and more competent reported greater social support.
Adolescent depression linked to lower levels of family support and supprt from friends. Some evidence for gender effects of social support on depression. |
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Term
What form of attachment is associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms?
Describe how attachment issues may be mediated. |
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Definition
Insecure attachment is associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms among adults.
Insecure attachment predicts increases in depressive symptoms over time in adults through the mediating role of both negative cognitions and interpersonal stress-generation processes (Hankin et al., 2005). |
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Term
How does attachment theory apply to the development of depression in adolescents?
What are potential moderators? |
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Definition
Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have demonstrated that attachment insecurity is associated with depressive symptoms in adolescent samples.
Attachment insecurity and depressive symptoms was moderated by interpersonal stressors. Adolescent females who exhibited attachment insecurity reported increases in depressive symptoms when experiencing high but not low levels of interpersonal stress. |
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Term
| Is attachment insecurity a predictor of depressive symptoms in children? |
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Definition
The link between attachment insecurity and depressive symptoms has also been well documented in child populations.
Preliminary research provides support for a prospective relationship between attachment insecurity and depressive symptoms, particularly within a vulnerability-stress framework. |
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Term
What do coherent integrative theories aim to accomplish?
What is the model proposed by Hankin and Abela for depression? |
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Definition
A coherent integrative theory should incorporate various vulnerabilities and stressors and delineate how these transact together over time to contribute to the development of depression.
Hankin and Abela propose the elaborated vulnerability-transactional stress model. |
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Term
What does the Elaborated Vulnerability-Transactional Stress Model begin with?
What do these events lead to? Describe. |
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Definition
Elaborated vulnerability-transactional stress model begins with the occurrence of a negative event, which reflects the big fact that stressors often lead to increases in depression
Negative life events predict later increases in depression, even after controlling for intial levels of negative/depressive affect among children, adolescents and adults.
Negative events contribute to elevations in initial levels of negative affect. Negative affect includes various negative emotions such as anxiety, depression and anger. |
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Term
How can negative affect lead to depressive symptoms?
How does the elaborated model differ from other general vulnerability-stress models? |
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Definition
If initial negative affect increases and remains, it can lead to increases in depressive symptoms.
Most generic vulnerability-stress models state that negative events contribute to depressive symptoms, but the elaborated model includes negative affect as a mediator. |
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Term
| Why do we include negative affect as an intermediary step with respect to temporality? |
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Definition
Research examining the temporal relationship between negative events and the rise in depressive symptoms has found that initial elevations of nonspecific negative affect follow the occurrence of a negative event.
Prospective studies assessing changes in negative affect after a naturally occurring stressor show that negative affect rises initially for most people after the negative event occurs, but that this increase in negative affect persists only among vulnerable individuals. |
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Term
| Why do we include negative affect as an intermediary step with respect to comorbidity? |
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Definition
Including intiial negative affect in the causal chain is to clarify the conundrum of comorbidity commonly observed with depression. Depression typically co-occurs with other psycological disorders, especially anxiety and behavioral. disorders.
Broad negative affect has been identified as the central common factor underlying the association between depression and co-occuring anxiety and externalizing symptoms.
The model reflects the reality that depression commonly overlaps with other negative emotions and psychopathological disorders. |
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Term
| Describe how cognitive vulnerability fits in the elaborated model. |
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Definition
Cognitive factors are hypothesized to interact with the occurrence of a negative life event to lead to a greater probability of experiencing eventual depression.
In the elaborated model, it is also hypothesized that cognitive factors can interact with the initial negative affect to amplify the affect, which can then contribute to increases in depressive symptoms.
Cognitive vulnerability factors are hypothesized to be more depression specific than some other depression vulnerabilities, which is commonly found in research among adolescents but mixed for dults. . |
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Term
| How does a developmental perspective change the way we interpret cognitive vulnerabilities in the elaborated model? |
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Definition
Taking a developmental perspective, the elaborated model suggests that there may be changes over time in the primary domain of cognitive vulnerability.
Example: Erikson (1974): People confront different tasks at different stages of the life span.
A match between stressors and an individual's primary domain of cognitive vulnerability (e.g., physical appearance, interpersonal or achievement) will lead to depression. |
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Term
| Describe the application of cognitive vulnerability with reference to domain-congruence in adults and research. |
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Definition
Several studies in adults have shown that cognitive vulnerability factors, such as negative inferential style and self-criticism interact with domain-congruent but not domain-incongruent stressors to predict increases in depressive symptoms.
Less research has been done in children and adolescents. Developmentally, it may be that younger children's self concepts are not yet diffferentiated enough for them to exhibit specific vulnerability. |
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Term
| Describe cognitive vulnerability factors with respect to domain-congruence among children and their development. |
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Definition
| Complexity of a child's self-concepts increases considerably during the transition from middle childhood to adolescents. As the complexity of children's self concepts increases, they begin to perceive different domains of their life as separate from one another, leading to negative interpersonal and achievement events to become relevant to different self-aspects. |
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Term
| Describe the Transactional Stress Generation Mechanism. |
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Definition
Transactional Stress Generation Mechanism: Research shows that depression can lead to negative events.
In the elaborated model, both independent and dependent negative events lead to elevations in initial negative affect and depression, and increases in depression can lead to more dependent negative life events.
The elaborated model also hypothesizes that psychopathological symptoms and disorders co-occurring with depression provide another interpersonal mechanism that can contribute to the creation of additional dependent negative events. |
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Term
| Describe some of the advantages of the elaborated model. |
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Definition
It would apply equally well to both youth and adults.
Contains developmental factors that can explain why depression rises during middle adolescence, especially among girls.
It emphasizes developmentally sensitive factors
-influence of preexisting vulnerabilities (e.g., genetic, personality, and stressful environmental) |
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Term
| Describe some of the advantages of the elaborated model in terms of its accounting for distal and proximal influences. |
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Definition
It posits that distal vulnerabilities and early adversity enhances likelihood of encountering more negative events, developing greater vulnerability to depression throughout childhood and adolscence.
It hypothesizes that various vulnerabilities to depression distally contribute to its development through more proximal stressors and vulnerability mechanisms. |
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Term
| Why are biological vulnerabilities excluded from the elaborated model? |
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Definition
| Biological models not included because it is currently unclear whether they are causally implicated in the development of depression or whether they reflect concurrent biological stress responses. |
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