Depression in adolescence.

Adolescence is an important developmental period for understanding the nature, course, and treatment of depression. Recent research concerned with depressive mood, syndromes, and disorders during adolescence is reviewed, including investigations of the prevalence, course, risk factors, and prevention and treatment programs for each of these 3 levels of depressive phenomena in adolescence. A broad biopsychosocial perspective on adolescent depression is recommended, and possible directions for future integrative research are proposed. Based on current research and knowledge, implications for research, program, and national policy are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivational interviewing and the social context.

Comments on the article by Miller and Rose (see record 2009-13007-002). As Miller and Rose opened “the black box of treatment to examine linkages between processes of delivery and client outcomes” (p. 529) in motivational interviewing (MI), it is important that their model include factors from the social context that may explain conditions that enhance or diminish MI interventions. Aspects of the social context may serve as mediators or moderators of the relational (MI spirit) and technical (change talk) components in MI theory. In this comment, the author suggests the addition of social influence to their theoretical model. The author suggests that existing research on the role of significant others argues that the conceptual model should include a box for Social Influence as a hypothesized process variable that relates to “Client Preparatory Change Talk and Diminished Resistance” and “Commitment to Behavior Change” (see Figure 1, p. 530). In addition, a second new box, labeled Significant Other Training in MI, should be added in direct relationship to the new Social Influence variable. Further research is needed to explore these variables and their specific functions within the model. These additions to the theoretical model affirm the active components of MI and potentially extend the effects through positive social influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental psychopathology perspective on adolescence.

Developmental psychopathology offers an integrative framework for conceptualizing the course of development during adolescence, with particular relevance for understanding continuity and the emergence of psychopathology during this and subsequent developmental periods. In this article, the utility of a developmental psychopathology perspective for informing the design of research, prevention, and intervention is highlighted. Interdisciplinary, organizational models of development, emphasizing the dynamic relations between the developing individual and internal and external contexts, are discussed. Examination of boundaries between abnormal and normal development during adolescence offers important vantage points for articulating diversity in the developmental course during this period. Conceptualizing divergence and convergence in developmental pathways, continuity and discontinuity in development, and the transactions of risk and protective processes leading to maladaptation, psychopathology, and resilience are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of sustained attention in infancy shape the developmental trajectory of social behavior from toddlerhood through adolescence.

The current study examined the relations between individual differences in sustained attention in infancy, the temperamental trait behavioral inhibition in childhood, and social behavior in adolescence. The authors assessed 9-month-old infants using an interrupted-stimulus attention paradigm. Behavioral inhibition was subsequently assessed in the laboratory at 14 months, 24 months, 4 years, and 7 years. At age 14 years, adolescents acted out social scenarios in the presence of an unfamiliar peer as observers rated levels of social discomfort. Relative to infants with high levels of sustained attention, infants with low levels of sustained attention showed increasing behavioral inhibition throughout early childhood. Sustained attention also moderated the relation between childhood behavioral inhibition and adolescent social discomfort, such that initial levels of inhibition at 14 months predicted later adolescent social difficulties only for participants with low levels of sustained attention in infancy. These findings suggest that early individual differences in attention shape how children respond to their social environments, potentially via attention's gate-keeping role in framing a child's environment for processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression in free-word-association responses at adolescence.

Eighth graders gave 35% fewer free-word-association responses to 57 biology stimulus words than did younger (fourth- and sixth-grade) and older (high school and college) subjects. This depression in response frequency occurred in both sexes and was associated with an increased frequency of nonresponses. Younger students gave many playful responses and referents to daily life, whereas older student responses were strongly domain specific. Eighth graders gave few of the casual responses that were characteristic of younger children, yet they presumably lacked the domain-specific knowledge that was characteristic of older students. Their nonresponses occurred most often with the more difficult (less common) stimulus words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social cognition and social competence in adolescence.

Investigated whether social cognition is related to effective social behavior, using 2 samples of 9th and 12th graders as Ss. Social competence was defined as the attainment of relevant social goals in specified social contexts, using appropriate means and resulting in positive development. The social goal chosen was being able to behave effectively in challenging social situations involving salient social objects. Nine measures of social cognition and 4 other measures were used to predict 4 measures of social competence, each dealing with performance in specific challenging social situations. Taken together, these predictors accounted for a large proportion of variance in social competence, especially when a composite criterion was used. Significant age and sex differences were obtained for many of the predictor and criterion variables, and there also appeared to be important developmental differences in the validity of social competence judgments. Factor analysis results suggested that social competence represents a domain of human functioning that is at least partly distinguishable from a cognitive or general competence domain. These results were substantially replicated in a 2nd sample. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and social problem solving.

20 depressed patients with major depressive disorder, 20 nondepressed matched control Ss, and 17 patients with anxiety disorders were compared in different measures of social problem solving. Problem solving was assessed with the Means-Ends Problem-Solving Test (Study 1), the solution of personal problems, and a problem-solving questionnaire (Study 2). Results showed that, as predicted, depressed Ss suffered from a deficit in problem solving in all 3 measures. The majority of these deficits were also displayed by the clinical control group rather than being specific to a diagnosis of depression. However, depressed Ss produced less effective solutions than did normal and clinical control Ss. The results suggest that depressed and anxious patients may have difficulties at different stages of the problem-solving process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and everyday social interaction.

Examined the relationships between depressive symptoms and everyday social interaction in a nonclinical population. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and social interaction was measured using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record. People who were classified as at risk for depression had less rewarding interactions than people who were not at risk. Depressive symptoms and interaction quantity and quality were negatively correlated for participants above the cutpoint, whereas they were uncorrelated for those below the at-risk cutpoint. Results also suggest that, compared with nondepressed people, depressed people derive more rewards from interactions with their closest opposite-sex friends, relative to the rewards they derive from interactions with other opposite-sex friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of physical and social reasoning in adolescence.

A theoretically important issue is the degree to which cognitive development in different domains is coordinated. Two important domains that have received considerable attention recently are physical and interpersonal reasoning, yet no adequately designed studies comparing them have been reported. A multitrait, multimethod investigation of the development of logical and interpersonal reasoning among 151 adolescents (ages 12, 14, and 16 yrs) was conducted by devising group written measures of standard physical and interpersonal reasoning tasks. Results indicate that correlations between different measures within each domain were no greater than correlations between measures from different domains (.50 and .44, respectively). Also, on qualitative stage comparisons, fewer Ss showed formal reasoning on the interpersonal measures than on the physical reasoning measures. Significant age effects were obtained for each measure. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-stereotyping in the context of multiple social identities.

This research examines self-stereotyping in the context of multiple social identities and shows that self-stereotyping is a function of stereotyped expectancies held in particular relationships. Participants reported how others evaluated their math and verbal ability and how they viewed their own ability when their gender or ethnicity was salient. Asian American women (Experiment 1) and European Americans (Experiment 2) exhibited knowledge of stereotyped social expectancies and corresponding self-stereotyping associated with their more salient identity. African Americans (Experiment 3) exhibited some knowledge of stereotyped social expectancies but no corresponding self-stereotyping. Correlational evidence and a 4th experiment suggest that self-stereotyping is mediated by the degree to which close others are perceived to endorse stereotypes as applicable to the self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The changed social context of testing.

By contrasting the social context in which tests were developed and the present-day social context, the authors shed light on the controversy about bias in tests. They note that an emphasis on selection—for which tests were designed in the early half of this century—has been largely replaced by widespread concern with equal opportunity. Proponents of tests claim that tests are unbiased because they accurately reflect ability. Critics argue that standardized tests are inappropriate because minority groups have lacked equal opportunity, and therefore their abilities are not accurately assessed. It is argued that current social values demand that testing should now be less concerned with unbiased predictive validity and more concerned with facilitating equal opportunity. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Known and potential processes underlying developmental trajectories in childhood and adolescence.

Recent research on influences associated with variability in child and adolescent adjustment has highlighted the nature of the multiple processes underlying this variability. Variability in child and adolescent adjustment is viewed as a function of covarying influences from multiple domains, operating on specific developmental outcomes across a background of time and the availability of environmental niches for the individual. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Human cognition in its social context.

Presents a model of how the human cognitive system operates in its natural social context. The model focuses on both input and output variables that have been ignored in the development of most other cognitive theories. On the input end, the model emphasizes the role of prior knowledge and the goal-directed nature of social information processing. On the output end, the model emphasizes various types of social judgments and affective reactions, as well as memory and behavioral decision making. The model is designed to provide a general conceptual framework for integrating much of contemporary social cognition research. As such, it is consistent with, and occasionally subsumes, more molecular theories of specific social phenomena. An indication of the model's applicability to cognitive heuristics, representation of self, and the role of affect in information processing is included. Predictions of the model (e.g., the effects of information on both recall and judgments when the information is processed for different purposes) and the empirical evidence bearing on them are discussed. (4 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal perception in a social context.

Interpersonal perception among well-acquainted individuals in a social context was studied. High acquaintance was expected to provide perceivers with a large sample of target behaviors across situations. In turn, memory for acquaintances should be organized by social group and personality characteristics, as predicted by the social context-personality index theory. Differentiation of the target's traits in memory should produce a target effect on perception that is stronger than the perceiver effect. Furthermore, evidence for accuracy, meta-accuracy, independence of self- and other-perception, and reciprocity of affect were anticipated. A social relations analysis of data from a multiple-interaction, reciprocal design was used to study these phenomena. At the individual level, analyses indicated that perceptions of targets were determined primarily by target characteristics and secondarily by perceiver construction of the judgment. Also, perceivers judged targets as targets judged themselves, and targets knew in general how perceivers viewed them. Self- and other-perceptions were largely independent. Surprisingly, we did not observe dyadic meta-accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression, social comparison, and the false-consensus effect.

Refers to the fact that in general, people perceive high consensus for their own attributes—the "false-consensus effect." 20 depressed and 20 nondepressed undergraduates (10 men and 10 women in each group) were asked about the extent to which depression-relevant and depression-irrelevant attributes were true of themselves and true of the "average college student." Ss were also asked questions assessing the accuracy of their perceptions of others. Depressed Ss showed less false consensus than nondepressed Ss. Although depressives characterized themselves as dissimilar to others, they showed no consistent bias to deprecate themselves relative to others. Nondepressives consistently enhanced themselves relative to others, although the magnitude of their self–other differences was smaller than that of depressives. The tendency to deprecate oneself relative to others on negative depression-relevant items was a better predictor of severity of depression than self-perceptions or other perceptions alone. Findings regarding the accuracy of perceptions of others were mixed. The discussion includes implications for the false-consensus effect, depressive attributional style, nondepressive self-serving biases, and therapy for depression. (1? p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression, schizophrenia, and social attraction.

J. C. Coyne (see PA, Vol 56:02455 and 61:1146) has shown that after interacting with depressed patients, Ss report feeling depressed themselves and rejecting toward the depressed person. In the present study, measures (e.g., Mood Adjective Check List, Interpersonal Check List) were obtained from 216 undergraduates who listened to tapes of interviews with either hospitalized depressive, hospitalized schizophrenics, or normal hospital staff. Results show that schizophrenics aroused dysphoric feelings similar although not identical to those feelings aroused by depressives, and in the case of males they were equally rejected. In addition, the schizophrenics and, to a lesser extent, the depressives were seen as weak, submissive, and less capable of offering a positive relationship. Modifications of the Coyne position are suggested. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chronic disease and perceived developmental progression in adolescence

This study examined whether chronic illness causes delays in adolescents' perceived developmental status. Longitudinal data were obtained from 86 adolescents afflicted with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and 103 healthy adolescents. The adolescents annually completed a questionnaire pertaining to their current developmental status and their desired future developmental status in 11 age-specific developmental tasks. Health status and physical maturity were also determined. In the first year of the study, the diabetics reported delays compared with their healthy peers in some developmental tasks, particularly physical maturity and an independent lifestyle. However, the overall developmental progression perceived by chronically ill adolescents was impressive. The difficulty of balancing normative development with the demands of chronic illness is discussed.     

Self-serving attributions in social context: Effects of self-esteem and social pressure.

Examined attributions (ATs) of Ss high (HSEs) and low (LSEs) in self-esteem in contests where (a) they were low or high in the motivation to make a positive impression on an audience, (b) the audience was perceived as supportive or critical, (c) Ss' accounts were public or private, and (d) Ss had succeeded or failed on a previous task. HSEs were most egotistical when evaluative pressures were greatest (i.e., they were motivated to make a good impression and had the opportunity to account publicly), whereas LSEs were least egotistical under these conditions. HSEs tended to internalize success by raising self-ratings, whereas LSEs tended to internalize failure by lowering self-ratings. A critical audience seemed to activate concerns about the defensibility of ATs, producing more caution and less explicit boastfulness. Factor analysis of Ss' responses suggested that they conceptualized the situation in terms of its implications for evaluating identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abuse and trauma in women: Broadening the social context.

Comments on the articles of M. P. Koss (see record 1990-17379-001) and A. B. McBride (see record 1990-17008-001) and their implications that social context may be a significant factor in the genesis of trauma syndromes in women. Systematic exploration of the wartime and peacetime exposure of women veterans provides an unexpected and valuable basis for studying women, violence, and trauma in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents' nonshared treatment of siblings and the development of social competence during adolescence.

This article proposes that there is a distinction between shared (SH) and nonshared (NSH) parenting. This study investigated the contribution of these aspects of parenting to indexes of social competence in adolescents by means of a multimethod, multimeasure study. NSH parenting was predictive of child adjustment at least as strongly as was SH parenting. The NSH components, however, were child-directed relations instead of sibling-directed relations. Parental treatment of a sibling thus added information about SH environmental processes, but did not provide information about independent NSH processes. NSH components predicted social responsibility and cognitive agency rather than autonomy, sociability, and self-worth. NSH conflict, shared monitoring and control, and both SH and NSH warmth were important for the prediction of adjustment. These relations were consistent across gender and were characteristic of a broad array of family types. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)