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A Test of a Cognitive Diathesis—Stress Generation Pathway in Early Adolescent Depression

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Abstract

This study evaluates a pathway for depressive risk that integrates cognitive diathesis-stress and stress-generation theories, following Hankin and Abramson’s (2001, Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 31(4), 491-504) elaborated cognitive-diathesis transactional stress model. In this model, young adolescents with initial depressive symptoms were hypothesised to experience later stressors that were at least partly dependent on their behaviour. The interaction of cognitive vulnerability, a tendency to make depressogenic attributions and to ruminate, with these dependent stressors was then hypothesised to predict depressive symptoms after 6 months. This model was supported in a sample of 756 young adolescents, with cognitive style and dependent stressors partly mediating the relationship between initial and subsequent depressive symptoms. Cognitive vulnerability was also linked with an increased likelihood of dependent stressors.

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Notes

  1. To ensure the applicability of this model to each individual cognitive vulnerability factor, the same model was run separately with the ACSQ and its interaction with dependent stressors, and the RRSQ and its interaction term. The former showed the same pattern of results, although the interaction term was then significant at p < 0.05 and the fit indices slightly poorer. The latter also showed the same patterns and excellent fit indices, with the interaction term significant at p < 0.001.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly supported by a research fellowship from the NSW Institute of Psychiatry. We would like to acknowledge the cooperation of the NSW Department of Education and Training, the Catholic Education Office (Diocese of Parramatta) and of the schools, parents and students who participated. We greatly appreciated the statistical advice of Dr Alan Taylor.

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  1. Centre for Emotional Health, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Amy Kercher & Ronald M. Rapee

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  1. Amy Kercher
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Correspondence to Amy Kercher.

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Kercher, A., Rapee, R.M. A Test of a Cognitive Diathesis—Stress Generation Pathway in Early Adolescent Depression. J Abnorm Child Psychol 37, 845–855 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-009-9315-3

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