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Exploring Modeling-based Hypotheses in Preadolescent Girls’ and Boys’ Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression

“…Our results extend to preadolescents, findings from studies on adolescents and college students that document significant relations between parents' and children's cognitive vulnerability after controlling for mothers' depression (e.g., Alloy et al 2001;Garber and Flynn 2001). Although we found mothers' depressive symptoms were significantly related to children's cognitive triad, when mothers' depressive symptoms and mothers' cognitive triad were considered simultaneously, only mothers' cognitive triad was a significant predictor of children's cognitive triad.…”

“…However, findings on college students (Alloy et al 2001) and young adolescents (Garber and Flynn 2001) reveal significant relations between mothers' and offsprings' cognitive styles even after statistically adjusting for mothers' depressive symptoms (in college students) or maternal history of depression (in young adolescents). These data suggest that mothers' cognitions may mediate the relation between mothers' depression symptoms and children's cognitive vulnerability.…”

“…These studies often assess these attributions on a parent form of the CASQ. Others have measured inferential styles in parents, and parents' attributional and inferential styles for events in their child's life, on questionnaire measures (Alloy et al 2001). Yet others have assessed verbal inferential feedback to children on behavioral observation measures [although these observational measures of mothers' negative attributions to children have been found to be not related to children's selfreported attributional/inferential style (r = .06, Mezulis et al 2006)].…”

“…Consistent with this notion is that early adolescents' internalizing behavior problems have been found to be more associated with depression in the same-sex parent (Thomas and Forehand 1991). Furthermore, in areas of research not focused on parents' depression, children may be more apt to identify with and consequently more likely to model same-sex parents (e.g., see Alloy et al 2001;Gerull and Rapee 2002), even with respect to hostile attributional cognitive biases (MacBrayer et al 2003). Given the above, we expected that the relations between mothers' depressive symptoms and cognitive vulnerability components would be more strongly related to girls' versus boys' cognitive vulnerability components.…”

“…overhearing parents verbalize negative thoughts about themselves, their world, and their future or depressive attributions of negative events). Previous studies examining modeling-based conceptualizations have merely assessed the relation between parents' and children's cognitive styles, and the results from these studies have been mixed (Alloy et al 2001, and as discussed above). These past studies have inferred that modeling may (or may not have) been responsible for the associations (or lack of associations) found.…”