Dampening, Positive Rumination, and Positive Life Events: Associations with Depressive Symptoms in Children at Risk for Depression

Abstract

Blunted positive affect is characteristic of depression. Altered positive affect regulation may contribute to this blunting, and two regulation strategies, dampening positive affect and positive rumination, have been implicated in depression. However, the conditions under which these strategies impart risk/protective effects prior to onset of depression are unknown. The current study examined 81 healthy children (age 7–10) at low and high risk for depression on the basis of maternal history of depression and tested how dampening and positive rumination interacted with the experience of recent positive life events to predict depressive symptoms. Children at high and low risk did not differ in their use of dampening or positive rumination. However, elevated use of dampening in the context of many positive life events predicted current depressive symptoms, and specifically anhedonic symptoms, in children at low-risk for depression. These findings held when controlling for negative rumination and negative life events. Positive rumination did not interact with positive life events but was associated with higher depressive symptoms in high-risk children. Results indicate that prior to the onset of depression, positive life events may impart risk when dampening positive affect is utilized in this context, while positive rumination may increase risk for depressive symptoms.

When Do Good Things Lift You Up? Dampening, Enhancing, and Uplifts in Relation To Depressive and Anhedonic Symptoms in Early Adolescence

“…Low enhancing has indeed been found to predict relative increases in anhedonia-related symptoms, whereas it was not found to predict general depressive symptoms in the same sample (Nelis et al, 2015). In children and early adolescents, again, more dampening related to more concurrent anhedonia, even when controlling for non-anhedonia depressive symptoms (Gilbert et al, 2017).…”

“…Specifically, the association was either not found (Burke, McArthur, Daryanani, Abramson, & Alloy, 2018;Verstraeten, Vasey, Raes, & Bijttebier, 2012), or sometimes only held for a subtype of enhancing (e.g., Dempsey, Gooding, & Jones, 2011;Raes, Daems, Feldman, Johnson, & Van Gucht, 2009). In another study, increased enhancing has been found to be related to higher concurrent depressive symptoms in children at risk for depression (Gilbert, Luking, Pagliaccio, Luby, & Barch, 2017).…”

“…The existence of an interaction between positive events and response styles to positive affect (i.e., dampening/enhancing) might be another possible explanation for the mixed results on the (longitudinal) association between response styles to positive affect and symptoms (e.g., Gilbert et al, 2017;Nelis et al, 2015).…”

“…Alternatively, another reasoning behind the interaction could be that experiencing only few positive events might fuel dampening thoughts right at those scarce moments that could otherwise have had an antidepressant effect. It is important to note that main effects of positive events on depressive symptoms have not always been found (e.g., Gilbert et al, 2017), which also points to the necessity of examining its interaction with processing styles. First indications for an interaction between response styles to positive experiences in the prediction of depressive symptoms come from research on attributional styles.…”

Positive affect regulation in youth: Taking stock and moving forward

“…Consistent with affect valuation theory (Tsai, 2007), parents may promote different emotions (e.g., calm vs. excited) depending on their emotional goals for their child (Gentzler, Palmer, Yi, Root, & Moran, 2018). Finally, although some research has examined PA regulation in conjunction with NA regulation (e.g., Gilbert, Luking, Pagliaccio, Luby, & Barch, 2016;Graf, Ramsey, Patrick, & Gentzler, 2016;Mancini, Luebbe, & Bell, 2016), none of the quartet papers did. This approach is essential if parents have generally supportive or unsupportive reactions to children's emotions, in which case the association between socialization of savoring and positive child outcomes could be an artifact of this general parenting approach to both positive and negative emotions.…”