No abstract

Depression is a prevalent and debilitating illness facing many adolescents, especially adolescent girls, whose risk for this disorder is approximately twice that of boys. Many studies have identified mechanisms that place girls at higher risk for depression during adolescence. Few, however, have examined differences in the everyday emotional experiences of boys and girls with varying levels of depressive symptoms. Using the Experience Sampling Method, this study investigated the roles of gender and depressive symptomatology in the emotional experiences of a community sample of youth (11e18 year-olds) from the Sloan 500 Family Study. Females with higher levels of depressive symptoms were more likely than females with fewer depressive symptoms and all males to experience strong negative emotions and to attribute the cause of these emotions to other people. These results suggest that emotional reactivity in interpersonal contexts is especially important to understand gender differences in the daily experience of depressive symptoms.

Numerous event-related potential (ERP) studies have examined adults’ neural responses to child emotional expressions to understand the neurobiological mechanisms contributing to caregiving. It is unclear, however, whether one emotion evokes an enhanced response across components, and whether this pattern differs based on parent status or other sample characteristics. This meta-analysis quantified adult responses to child emotional expressions at the N170 and the late positive potential (LPP) components. Cohen’s d reflected the difference between crying and neutral (CN), crying and laughing (CL), and laughing and neutral (LN) N170 and LPP amplitudes. Crying expressions elicited slightly enhanced N170 and LPP amplitudes relative to neutral and laughing expressions (N170 CN: k = 24, d = −0.09, p < 0.001; N170 CL: k = 30, d = −0.07, p = .004; LPP CN: k = 20, d = 0.12, p = .027; LPP CL: k = 27, d = 0.10, p < .001), and laughing expressions elicited slightly enhanced N170 amplitudes relative to neutral expressions (N170 LN: k = 21, d = −0.05, p = .02). Parental status, child age, risk factors for insensitive caregiving, and measurement characteristics moderated some effect sizes, with reference electrode emerging as the most consistent moderator. Results shed light on the typical pattern of neural response to child emotions and characteristics that may moderate this response.

The link between parental depressive history and parenting styles is well established, as is the association of parenting with child psychopathology. However, little research has examined whether a depressive history in one parent predicts the parenting style of the other parent. As well, relatively little research has tested transactional models of the parenting-child psychopathology relationship in the context of parents’ depressive histories. In this study, mothers and fathers of 392 children were assessed for a lifetime history of major depression when their children were 3 years old. They then completed measures of permissiveness and authoritarianism and their child’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms when children were 3, 6, and 9 years old. Results showed that a depressive history in one parent predicted the other parent’s permissiveness. Analyses then showed that child externalizing symptoms at age 3 predicted maternal permissiveness and authoritarianism and paternal permissiveness at age 6. Maternal permissiveness at age 6 predicted child externalizing symptoms at age 9. No relationships in either direction were found between parenting styles and child internalizing symptoms. Results highlight the importance of considering both parents’ depressive histories when understanding parenting styles, and support transactional models of parenting styles and child externalizing symptoms.

Background Early irritability predicts a broad spectrum of psychopathology spanning both internalizing and externalizing disorders, rather than any particular disorder or group of disorders (i.e. multifinality). Very few studies, however, have examined the developmental mechanisms by which it leads to such phenotypically diverse outcomes. We examined whether variation in the diurnal pattern of cortisol moderates developmental pathways between preschool irritability and the subsequent emergence of internalizing and externalizing symptoms 9 years later. Method When children were 3 years old, mothers were interviewed about children's irritability and completed questionnaires about their children's psychopathology. Six years later, children collected saliva samples at wake-up and bedtime on three consecutive days. Diurnal cortisol patterns were modeled as latent difference scores between evening and morning samples. When children were approximately 12 years old, mothers again completed questionnaires about their children's psychopathology. Results Among children with higher levels of irritability at age 3, a steeper diurnal cortisol slope at age 9 predicted greater internalizing symptoms and irritability at age 12, whereas a blunted slope at age 9 predicted greater externalizing symptoms at age 12, adjusting for baseline and concurrent symptoms. Conclusion Our results suggest that variation in stress system functioning can predict and differentiate developmental trajectories of early irritability that are relatively more internalizing v. those in which externalizing symptoms dominate in pre-adolescence.