Depression in Early, Middle and Late Adolescence: Differential Evidence for the Cognitive Diathesis–Stress Model

Abstract

Stress induced by maternal and, in lesser extent, paternal rejection is contributing to depressive symptoms primarily in younger and to lesser extent in older age groups. The quality of peer relationships becomes an increasingly salient source of distress as adolescence unfolds and is certainly an important mechanism affecting depression in adolescence. Maladaptive schemas only start functioning as a cognitive diathesis in late adolescence, increasing depression in response to peer-related distress. Since maladaptive schemas are not yet operating as cognitive vulnerability factors in early and middle adolescence, early interventions for depressive disorders may be more effective compared with treatment in later adolescence.

Repetitive thinking about the mother during distress moderates the link between children's attentional breadth around the mother and depressive symptoms in middle childhood

“…To calculate a multi-informant compound score, a principal component analysis was performed in SPSS based on the mean scores for self-reported (CDI) and mother-reported (Withdrawn-Depressed scale of the CBCL) depressive symptoms (see Braet, Van Vlierberghe, Vandevivere, Theuwis, & Bosmans, 2013). One factor with an eigenvalue higher than 1 (1.31) was extracted with both informants' scores loading .81 on this factor.…”

Feeling left out: depressed adolescents may atypically recruit emotional salience and regulation networks during social exclusion

“…Cognitive vulnerability–stress models posit that increased social stressors interact with cognitive and information processing biases to predict youth depression (Alloy & Abramson, 2007; Hankin, 2008; Jacobs et al ., 2008). Adolescent depression is related to heightened interpersonal stress (Shih et al ., 2006) and peer victimization (Stapinski et al ., 2015), and high levels of peer rejection combined with maladaptive schemas and negative self-referential attributions predict adolescent depression (Prinstein et al ., 2005; Braet et al ., 2013). Furthermore, brain regions involved in self-concept refinement, sensitivity to peer influence and emotion regulation undergo significant maturation during adolescence (Pfeifer & Blakemore, 2012).…”

Cognitive reappraisal of peer rejection in depressed versus non-depressed adolescents: Functional connectivity differences

“…Psychosocial stress in general, and peer rejection specifically, are strongly associated with adolescent depression (Thapar et al, 2012). However, as interpersonal stressors are common during adolescence, and as not all young people develop depressive disorders in response to these, diathesis-stress models implicate latent factors that might explain why depressed adolescents are more vulnerable to peer rejection than others (Braet et al, 2012). In this study we investigate i) whether adolescent depression is characterised by an inability to deploy an effective emotion regulation strategy during peer rejection, and ii) whether atypical functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and subcortical regions may underlie this difficulty.…”