Abstract :
Depression commonly co-occurs with anxiety and
externalizing problems. Etiological factors from a central
cognitive theory of depression, the Hopelessness Theory
(Abramson et al. Psychological Review, 96, 358–372, 1989),
were examined to evaluate whether a negative inferential style
about cause, consequence, and self interacted with stressors
over time to predict prospective elevations in depressive
symptoms specifically compared with typically co-occurring
symptoms. Negative inferential style was assessed at baseline
in a sample of early and middle adolescents (N=350, sixth to
tenth graders). Measures of general depressive, anhedonic
depressive, anxious arousal, general internalizing, and externalizing
symptoms and occurrence of stressors were assessed
at four time points over a 5-month period. Results using
hierarchical linear modeling show that a negative inferential
style interacted with negative events to predict prospective
symptoms of general and anhedonic depression specifically
but not anxious arousal, general internalizing or externalizing
symptoms. Negative events predicted prospective elevations
of symptoms of anxious arousal, internalizing, and externalizing
problems.
