Convergence of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms in Friendship Dyads

Abstract

Despite psychometric rationale to include multiple informants, psychological assessment typically involves data collected from the patient (target) only, particularly with regard to depressive and anxious symptomatology. This study addressed this gap in the literature by assessing convergence between targets and their close friends (informants) in an ethnically diverse sample of young adults. One hundred and thirty-nine friendship dyads completed a packet of questionnaires including different versions administered to the targets and informants, with targets completing the standard questionnaire battery focused on their own symptoms and informants completing questionnaires on their view of the target participants’ symptoms, rather than their own characteristics. Measures were included to assess a wide range of symptomatology, including behavioral, cognitive, and physiological symptoms of anxiety and depression. The target-informant correlations were largely significant and of small-to-medium magnitude. In addition, target-informant agreement was higher in more visible symptoms (e.g., behavioral) than in less visible symptoms (e.g., physiological) of anxiety and depression. Interestingly, level of closeness in the relationship did not influence the magnitude of correlations. Implications for future research and integration into clinical assessment practices are discussed.

Accuracy and Bias in Perception of Distress Level and Distress Change Among Same-Sex College Student Roommate Dyads

“…Using TBM (West & Kenny, 2011), we found statistically significant truth forces in both time points (February: .36, April: .29). The modest truth forces are also consistent with previous research on judgment of affect in which the correspondence between how the targets saw themselves and how the perceivers saw them ranges from .19 to .41 (Gros et al, 2013; Okazaki, 2002; Watson & Clark, 1991) although this earlier work did not adjust for perceiver’s own affective states. Moreover, the truth force we found was smaller in magnitude than personality traits that are high in visibility such as extraversion ( r = .55), but was comparable to personality traits that are low in visibility such as emotional stability ( r = .41; Connelly & Ones, 2010).…”

“…In addition, self–other agreements in personality traits tend to increase with longer and closer acquaintanceship (Biesanz, West, & Millevoi, 2007; Funder & Colvin, 1988; Thomas & Fletcher, 2003), especially when raters are newly acquainted. In contrast, Gros et al (2013) did not generally find associations between closeness and level of agreement on anxiety and depression. Their result is consistent with other studies in examining assessments of affective states among friendship samples (Okazaki, 2002; Watson, Hubbard, & Wiese, 2000).…”

“…However, the principles developed in personality assessments do not always apply to assessments of mental states. The magnitude of the correlations found by Gros et al (2013) between the targets’ and informants’ reports was only small-to-medium in size (the average correlation was .22). This was lower than typically found in the personality literature (Connelly & Ones, 2010), but this pattern of results was consistent with previous research on perceptions of affective states.…”

“…There is considerable evidence from the person perception literature that peers can provide systematic information about trait assessment (e.g., Bernieri, Zuckerman, Koestner, & Rosenthal, 1994; Hayes & Dunning, 1997; Kurtz & Sherker, 2003), but there is less evidence regarding whether they can accurately assess mood and distress (e.g., Gros, Milanak, & Hershenberg, 2013; Watson & Clark, 1991), and there is virtually no evidence that they can detect changes in distress levels over time. To address this gap, we carried out secondary analyses of data from a project wherein same-sex college roommate dyads were recruited and asked to report distress for themselves and their roommate at two times in the spring semester of an academic year, 2 months apart.…”

Impact of comorbid depression on quality of life in male combat Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder

“…All measures of quality of life in this study, including objective measures, were obtained through self-report methodology. Use of other reporters, such as employers, spouses, and friends, could enhance the reliability of findings [53]. Furthermore, our study was cross-sectional in nature and therefore causality and temporal precedence cannot be conclusively established.…”