A prospective study of the cognitive-stress relation to depressive symptoms in adolescents

Abstract

This longitudinal study investigated the cognitive diathesis-stress model of depression in a high-risk sample across three years (i.e., 6th, 7th, and 8th grade), using traditional, additive, weakest link, and keystone approaches. Participants were 240 children at high and low risk for mood disorders based on their mother’s history of depression. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses provided some support for the individual, additive, weakest link, and keystone diatheses, as well as partial support for the symptom component of the hopelessness theory. Gender moderated the relation between cognitive diatheses, stress levels, and depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the utility of composite measures of cognitive vulnerability in conjunction with stress in predicting depressive symptoms. In addition, gender differences were found with regard to the cognitive diathesis-stress interactions.