Dampening of positive affect prospectively predicts depressive symptoms in non-clinical samples

Abstract

Past research has convincingly shown that a ruminative response style to negative affect (NA) predicts concurrent and prospective levels of depressive symptoms. Recent findings suggest that how people respond to positive affect (PA) might also be involved in the development of depressive symptoms, although this has heretofore not been tested prospectively. Participants from two non-clinical samples (total N=487) completed measures of depressive symptoms, response styles to NA (negative rumination) and response styles to PA (positive rumination and mood dampening) at two assessments separated by a 3-month (Sample 1) and 5-month period (Sample 2). Results in both samples showed that increased dampening responses to PA predict depressive symptoms at follow-up, even when taking into account baseline depressive symptoms and ruminative responses to NA. The results suggest that (dampening) responses to PA add useful information above and beyond (ruminative) responses to NA in predicting depression symptoms prospectively.

An increase in joy after two weeks is more specific of later antidepressant response than a decrease in sadness

“…For example, depressed individuals reported a greater tendency to dampen positive emotion than their never-depressed counterparts, but they did not significantly differ from recovered depressed individuals (Werner-Seidler et al, 2013). Moreover, increased dampening of positive emotions predicted depressive symptoms up to 5 months later (Raes et al, 2012). According to this view, the absence of an improvement in positive emotions could be seen as a 'stigmate' or a 'scar effect' (Gorwood et al, 2008(Gorwood et al, , 2014 of past depressive episodes, a factor known to be associated with worse outcome.…”

Turning the pink cloud grey: Dampening of positive affect predicts postpartum depressive symptoms

“…Dampening is maladaptive in that it renders people less or incapable of fully enjoying or benefiting from positive experiences, but its association with depression is far less well documented as depression research has only recently been directed to positive affect regulation. Still, there are preliminary findings suggesting that a dampening response style to positive affect goes hand in hand with depressive symptoms (e.g., Raes et al 2009Raes et al , 2012Nelis et al 2013;Werner-Seidler et al 2013) and that it may even predict prospective levels of depression .…”

Fears of Negative Emotions in Relation to Fears of Happiness, Compassion,Alexithymia and Psychopathology in a Depressed Population: A Preliminary Study

“…The authors highlight the importance of not only encouraging patients to participate in enjoyable situations but actually practicing allowing one to feel pleasant emotions. Raes et al [25] found that dampening positive affect predicts depressive symptoms and is also related to symptoms of panic disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder and OCD [26]. Weeks et al [27][28][29] found that some socially phobic people are fearful of positive evaluations as well as negative evaluation.…”