Benjamin L. Hankin

Development of Depression From Preadolescence to Young Adulthood: Emerging Gender Differences in a 10-Year Longitudinal Study

The authors investigated the emergence of gender differences in clinical depression and the overall development of depression from preadolescence to young adulthood among members of a complete birth cohort using a prospective longitudinal approach with structured diagnostic interviews administered 5 times over the course of 10 years. Small gender differences in depression (females greater than males) first began to emerge between the ages of 13 and 15. However, the greatest increase in this gender difference occurred between ages 15 and 18. Depression rates and accompanying gender differences for a university student subsample were no different than for a nonuniversity subsample. There was no gender difference for depression recurrence or for depression symptom severity. The peak increase in both overall rates of depression and new cases of depression occurred between the ages of 15 and 18. Results suggest that middle-to-late adolescence (ages 15-18) may be a critical time for studying vulnerability to depression because of the higher depression rates and the greater risk for depression onset and dramatic increase in gender differences in depression during this period.

Is There a Universal Positivity Bias in Attributions? A Meta-Analytic Review of Individual, Developmental, and Cultural Differences in the Self-Serving Attributional Bias

Researchers have suggested the presence of a self-serving attributional bias, with people making more internal, stable, and global attributions for positive events than for negative events. This study examined the magnitude, ubiquity, and adaptiveness of this bias. The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 266 studies, yielding 503 independent effect sizes. The average d was 0.96, indicating a large bias. The bias was present in nearly all samples. There were significant age differences, with children and older adults displaying the largest biases. Asian samples displayed significantly smaller biases (d = 0.30) than U.S. (d = 1.05) or Western (d = 0.70) samples. Psychopathology was associated with a significantly attenuated bias (d = 0.48) compared with samples without psychopathology (d = 1.28) and community samples (d = 1.08). The bias was smallest for samples with depression (0.21), anxiety (0.46), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (0.55). Findings confirm that the self-serving attributional bias is pervasive in the general population but demonstrates significant variability across age, culture, and psychopathology.

Measuring cognitive vulnerability to depression in adolescence: reliability, validity, and gender differences.

Evaluated the psychometric properties of a newly created measure of cognitive vulnerability to depression for use with adolescents. Previous measures have shown poor internal consistency reliability and have not completely assessed all hypothesized components of cognitive vulnerability. High school students completed questionnaires assessing cognitive vulnerability to depression, negative life events, depressive symptoms, and general internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The Adolescent Cognitive Style Questionnaire (ACSQ) demonstrated excellent internal consistency reliability and good test-retest reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis showed there were 3 latent factors to the ACSQ. Construct validity was supported by significant correlations with another attributional style questionnaire, as well as with depressive and internalizing symptoms. The interaction of ACSQ with negative events significantly predicted concurrent depressive and internalizing symptoms but not externalizing problems. Last, cognitive vulnerability mediated the gender difference in depressive symptoms. Overall, results suggest that the ACSQ is a highly reliable and valid measure of cognitive vulnerability to depression in adolescence.

Adolescent depression: Description, causes, and interventions.

Depression is one of the most prevalent of the psychiatric disorders and is common among individuals with epilepsy. Depression often begins in adolescence. The present review focuses on adolescent depression. In particular, this review first summarizes the definition, description, and classification of adolescent depression. Next, potential causes of adolescent depression are reviewed from a vulnerability-stress perspective. This part of the review focuses on the role of stressors and how stressors interact with genetic, biological, cognitive, personality, and interpersonal vulnerabilities to predict adolescent depression. Last, clinical aspects of adolescent depression are reviewed, including treatment and prevention of depression and the relation to epileptic disorders in adolescence. In sum, a substantial percentage of youth with epilepsy and seizures exhibit depression, and many are not diagnosed or treated in a timely manner. The present review shows that there are valid, empirically based assessments, treatments, and preventions for depression in adolescence that hold promise for reducing the significant burden associated with depression.

Development of psychopathology: A vulnerability-stress perspective

Preface Acknowledgments I. OVERVIEW AND FOUNDATIONS 1. Conceptualizing the Role of Stressors in the Development of Psychopathology - Kathryn E. Grant and Susan D. McMahon 2. Vulnerability-Stress Models - Rick E. Ingram and David D. Luxton II. VULNERABILITIES 3. The Role of Emotion Regulation in the Development of Psychopathology - Tara M. Chaplin and Pamela M. Cole 4. Biological Vulnerabilities to the Development of Psychopathology - Robert O. Pihl and Amelie Nantel-Vivier 5. Cognitive Vulnerability-Stress Models of Psychopathology: A Developmental Perspective - Brandon E. Gibb and Meredith E. Coles 6. Interpersonal Factors As Vulnerability to Psychopathology Over the Life Course - Kimberly Van Orden, LaRicka R. Wingate, Kathryn H. Gordon, and Thomas E. Joiner 7. Genetic Vulnerabilities to the Development of Psychopathology - Kathryn S. Lemery and Lisa Doelger 8. Interpreting Personality As a Vulnerability for Psychopathology: A Developmental Approach to the Personality-Psychopathology Relationship - Jennifer L. Tackett and Robert F. Krueger 9. Attachment As Vulnerability to the Development of Psychopathology - Joanne Davila, Melissa Ramsay, Catherine B. Stroud, and Sara J. Steinberg III. DISORDERS 10. Depression From Childhood Through Adolescence and Adulthood: A Developmental Vulnerability and Stress Perspective - Benjamin L. Hankin and John R. Z. Abela 11. Anxiety Disorders: A Developmental Vulnerability-Stress Perspective - Nathan L. Williams, John M. Reardon, Kathleen T. Murray, and Tara M. Cole 12. A Developmental Vulnerability-Stress Model of Eating Disorders: A Cognitive Approach - Myra Cooper 13. The Development of Substance Abuse in Adolescence: Correlates, Causes, and Consequences - Jon D. Kassel, Sally Weinstein, Steven A. Skitch, Jennifer Veilleux, and Robin Mermelstein 14. Development of Behavioral Problems Over The Life Course: A Vulnerability and Stress Perspective - Benjamin L. Hankin, John R. Z. Abela, Randy P. Auerbach, Chad M. McWhinnie, and Steven A. Skitch 15. The Developmental Psychopathology of Personality Disorders - Jeffrey G. Johnson, Pamela G. McGeoch, Vanessa P. Caskey, Sotoodeh G. Abhary, Joel R. Sneed, and Robert F. Bornstein Author Index Subject Index About the Editors About the Contributors

A prospective test of the hopelessness theory of depression in adolescence

Depression increases sharply during adolescence. This study prospectively investigated etiological predictions from the hopelessness theory of depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989) among a sample of middle to late adolescents to examine whether this theory can be applied to this important age group. High school students completed measures of attributional style, hopelessness, negative stressors, general depressive symptoms, and specific hypothesized hopelessness depressive (HD) symptoms at two times separated by 5 weeks. Results showed that the attributional style × stress interaction predicted increases in depressive symptoms from T1 to T2. Gender moderated this interaction for the BDI such that the vulnerability–stress component held for boys, but not girls. Consistent with the vulnerability–stress component of the theory, these effects held for the increase in HD symptoms for both boys and girls, but not non-HD symptoms. Mediational analyses did not provide consistent support for hopelessness as a mediator of this association. These results were mostly the same whether the internal, stable, and global dimensions versus only the stable, global dimensions of attributional style were used to operationalize cognitive vulnerability. Overall, results suggest that the cognitive vulnerability–stress aspect of the hopelessness theory can be applied to middle to late adolescence.

The structure of child and adolescent psychopathology: generating new hypotheses.

To begin to resolve conflicts among current competing taxonomies of child and adolescent psychopathology, the authors developed an interview covering the symptoms of anxiety, depression, inattention, and disruptive behavior used in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10; World Health Organization, 1992), and several implicit taxonomies. This interview will be used in the future to compare the internal and external validity of alternative taxonomies. To provide an informative framework for future hypothesis-testing studies, the authors used principal factor analysis to induce new testable hypotheses regarding the structure of this item pool in a representative sample of 1,358 children and adolescents ranging in age from 4 to 17 years. The resulting hypotheses differed from the DSM-IV, particularly in suggesting that some anxiety symptoms are part of the same syndrome as depression, whereas separation anxiety, fears, and compulsions constitute a separate anxiety dimension.

Cognitive Vulnerability-Stress Theories of Depression: Examining Affective Specificity in the Prediction of Depression Versus Anxiety in Three Prospective Studies

Anxiety and depression overlap extensively at the level of symptoms and disorder. We tested the etiological factors from two cognitive vulnerability-stress models of depression (Hopelessness theory and Becks theory) for specificity in predicting depression compared with anxiety. Multiple symptom measures of anxiety and depression with good discriminant validity, diagnoses of anxiety and depression, cognitive vulnerability (negative cognitive style and dysfunctional attitudes), and negative events were assessed in three prospective studies: one with a short-term (5-weeks) follow-up, the second with a long-term (2-years) follow-up, and the third with an academic midterm design. Results show that negative events were a general risk factor for anxiety and depression. Cognitive vulnerability for depression interacted with negative events to predict future depression specifically but not anxiety. Comparison of the two theories suggests that their cognitive vulnerability-stress components overlap largely in the prediction of depression. Implications for the co-occurrence of anxiety and depression as well as for the cognitive vulnerability-stress theories of depression are discussed.

Development of gender differences in depression: Description and possible explanations

This article reviews the description and possible explanations for the development of gender differences in depression in children and adolescents. The emerging gender difference (more girls depressed than boys) in depressed mood and depressive disorders appears after the age of 13 years or midpuberty. Currently, little evidence supports that biological factors are an explanation. Genetic factors are associated more strongly with depression among pubertal girls than boys. Regarding cognitive factors, ruminative response style, but not dysfunctional attitudes or attributional style, has been supported to be a possible explanation. Studies on childhood adversities and gender role have provided evidence explaining why more girls are depressed than boys. Girls are more likely to experience negative events in the family than boys, and these adversities are in turn associated with elevated depression. Girls identify more strongly with a feminine stereotype of needing to appear thin and consequently become more dissatisfied with their body shape and physical appearance, which in turn is associated with increased depression.

Rumination as a Vulnerability Factor to Depression During the Transition From Early to Middle Adolescence: A Multiwave Longitudinal Study

The current study examined vulnerability to depression during the transition from early to middle adolescence from the perspective of the response styles theory. During an initial assessment, 382 adolescents (ages 11-15 years) completed self-report measures assessing rumination and depressive symptoms as well as a semistructured clinical interview assessing current and past major depressive episodes. Every 3 months for the subsequent 2 years, adolescents completed self-report measures assessing depressive symptoms and negative events. Every 6 months, adolescents completed a semistructured clinical interview assessing the onset of new major depressive episodes. Higher levels of rumination were associated with a greater likelihood of exhibiting a past history of major depressive episodes, a greater likelihood of experiencing the onset of a future major depressive episode, and greater duration of future depressive episodes. Consistent with a vulnerability-stress perspective, rumination moderated the association between the occurrence of negative events and the development of future depressive symptoms and major depressive episodes.