Relation between differential emotions and depression in emotionally disturbed children and adolescents.

Abstract

Differential emotions theory (Izard, 1972) provides a conceptual framework for the role of emotions in affective disorders. The present study investigated the relation of emotions to depression in a sample of child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients (N= 145). Findings indicate that shyness, anger, enjoyment, and shame explained 51.4% of the variance in depression scores. Furthermore, profiles of emotions experienced by youths with a depressive disorder differed significantly from emotion profiles of nondepressed youths on the following emotions: enjoyment, surprise, sadness, anger, shame, shyness, guilt, and self-directed hostility. Differential emotions also correctly classified 80.0% of depressed and nondepressed subjects into their respective groups.

Emotions and Suicidal Ideation among Depressed Women with Childhood Sexual Abuse Histories

“…Another important consideration that has not been examined in previous studies is potential confounding effects of psychiatric symptoms in the association between emotions and SI. Because certain emotions may be more likely than others to co‐occur with symptoms of depression (Carey, Carey, & Kelly, 1997; Carey, Finch, & Carey, 1991) and anxiety (Etkin & Wager, 2007), it is potentially more informative to examine the relationships of emotions with SI over and above the severity of psychiatric symptoms.…”

Differential emotions theory: Relative contribution of emotion, cognition, and behavior to the prediction of depressive symptomatology in non‐referred adolescents

“…The findings of Izard (1985, 1986) revealed that the emotions of sadness, self-directed hostility, anger, shame, interest, and enjoyment contributed to the prediction of depressive symptomatology in non-referred 10-and 11-year old children. Moreover, research with reliably DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) diagnosed adolescent psychiatric patients indicated that the emotional configuration of depressed adolescents differed from non-depressed youths on the emotions of enjoyment, surprise, sadness, anger, shame, shyness, guilt, and self-directed hostility (Carey, Finch, & Carey, 1991). These studies provide support for the role of emotions in depressive symptomatology.…”

“…Nine DES factors (sadness, hostility, anger, fear, interest, enjoyment, shame, guilt, and shyness) were chosen a priori for this study. The available studies on the DES with children and adolescents have demonstrated adequate reliability and validity (Blumberg & Izard, 1985, 1986Carey, Finch, & Carey, 1991).…”

“…The emotions of sadness, self-directed hostility, anger, fear, interest, enjoyment, shame, shyness, and guilt were expected to be significant in the prediction of depression. These factors were selected based on their proposed relation to depression cited in differential emotions theory and findings from previous studies on depressive symptoms with children and adolescents (Blumberg & Izard, 1985, 1986Carey, Finch, & Carey, 1991;Izard, 1972). 3.…”

Internalizing symptoms and affect of children with emotional and behavioral disorders: A comparative study with an urban African American sample

“…Because of the problem of co-occurrence of comorbidity of symptoms, it is normal for a child who exhibits symptoms of depression to also exhibit some symptoms of anxiety, social withdrawal, somatic complaints, and vice-versa. Also, recent research has indicated that various expressions of affectivity (i.e., positive affect and negative affect) may keenly impact the expression of internalizing disorders of children and may be a key to differentiating depression from anxiety in cases where such differentiation is possible (e.g., Carey, Finch, & Carey, 1991;Jolly, Dyck, Kramer, & Wherry, 1994;Stark, Kaslow, & Laurent, 1993;Tellegen, 1986;Watson & Clark, 1984). The unique broad-band internalizing symptom construction of the ISSC, coupled with its affect-based factor structure, are consistent with these recent developments in child psychopathology research.…”