Disentangling the effects of depression symptoms and adult attachment on emotional disclosure

Individuals with high levels of depression symptoms and individuals with insecure attachment orientations have been shown to limit their use of emotional disclosure as a means of emotion regulation. However, little is known about how depression symptoms and insecure attachment orientations might jointly predict whether individuals engage in emotional disclosure. The authors addressed this question using both inter- and intraindividual approaches. College students (N = 121) completed measures of depression symptoms, adult attachment orientation, and generalized disclosure tendencies. To obtain an intraindividual measure of emotional disclosure, participants also completed an online daily diary in which they rated the intensity of the day's most unpleasant event and their disclosure of that event for 7 days. Results indicated that depression symptoms were negatively related to generalized disclosure tendencies and to intraindividual daily intensity-disclosure slopes. Attachment avoidance was negatively related to both generalized disclosure tendencies and to daily disclosure, and attachment anxiety moderated the relation between daily event intensity and disclosure. The authors discuss the implications for theory and counseling psychology practice.     

Talking about daily emotional events: Psychological well-being moderates the intensity–disclosure link

The intensity of distressing events predicts people’s disclosure of those events at between-person and within-person levels. Depression symptoms seem to attenuate the within-person relation, but past research has not taken a multidimensional view of depression as a moderator. The authors tested whether two constructs related to depression-general psychological well-being and life satisfaction-account for depression’s moderating effects. In a daily diary study, college students (N = 116) rated the intensity of the day’s most unpleasant event and their disclosure of the event each day for 14 days. Participants completed measures of disclosure tendencies, depression symptoms, well-being, and life satisfaction prior to the diary portion of the study. Multilevel modeling analyses revealed moderating effects of disclosure tendencies and depression on the within-person intensity–disclosure relation. However, when psychological well-being and life satisfaction were entered, depression was no longer a significant moderator, but well-being was. Psychological well-being therefore determines the expression of individual differences in the disclosure of daily emotional events.     

The role of social support on the disclosure of everyday unpleasant emotional events

Talking about unpleasant events has important implications for coping with distress, but the literature has not thoroughly addressed the role of social support on the decision to disclose these events. The authors hypothesized that perceptions of the availability of social support and satisfaction with support received regarding an event would be positively related to the disclosure of the event, and participants’ sex, emotional disclosure tendencies, depression symptoms, and global perceptions of support would moderate these relations. College students (N = 365) reported on 2,001 unpleasant emotional events that they personally experienced in the past week. Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that the perceived availability of support for an event predicted the degree of disclosure of that event, even while controlling for its intensity. Event disclosure predicted satisfaction with the support received for the event, controlling for event intensity and available support. This latter relation was moderated by the participants’ global perceptions of social support, such that the disclosure–satisfaction relation was stronger for individuals who perceived relatively less global social support. These findings suggest that characteristics of the social-support network ought to be considered as an important factor relevant to the decision to disclose everyday unpleasant events.     

Emotional intensity of idiographic sad memories in depression predicts symptom levels 1 year later

When cued with generic happy and sad words, depressed individuals have been found to articulate contextually impoverished memories of autobiographical events. Although this pattern predicts a worse symptomatic course of disorder in some depressed samples, longitudinal findings with the cue-word paradigm are inconsistent. To address the etiological significance of autobiographical memories outside the cue-word paradigm, the authors used an idiographic interview in which depressed participants generated memories of their happiest and saddest lifetime events. Each memory was coded for detail and emotional intensity. At a 1-year follow-up, participants' levels of depressive symptoms were reassessed. Lower emotional intensity of saddest memories predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms at follow-up. Several implications for understanding sadness and emotional disclosure in depression are discussed.     

Naturalistic Partial Sleep Deprivation Leads to Greater Next-Day Anxiety: The Moderating Role of Baseline Anxiety and Depression

The detrimental effects of insufficient sleep on emotional functioning have been well established. Total sleep deprivation usually leads to increased anxiety and depressive symptoms the following day. However, no study has yet examined the relationships between unmanipulated partial sleep deprivation and next-day symptoms of anxiety and depression in everyday life, which this study sought to characterize. Participants (N = 94) completed daily diary surveys twice per day for 2 weeks without instructions to alter their sleep in any way. Nights of spontaneous, naturally occurring partial sleep deprivation were followed by increased levels of self-reported symptoms of anxious arousal the next day, but were unrelated to next-day symptoms of anhedonic depression or general distress. The relationship between partial sleep deprivation and next-day anxious arousal was found to be moderated by both baseline depressive symptoms and anxiety such that individuals reporting higher levels of depression or anxiety at baseline showed relatively greater increases in symptoms of anxiety following partial sleep deprivation. These results suggest that partial sleep deprivation occurring in everyday life can lead to higher next-day levels of anxious arousal, a relationship that is particularly deleterious for individuals with higher overall levels of anxiety or depressive symptoms.     

The fading affect bias: Effects of social disclosure to an interactive versus non-responsive listener

The intensity of negative emotions associated with event memories fades to a greater extent over time than positive emotions (fading affect bias or FAB). In this study, we examine how the presence and behaviour of a listener during social disclosure influences the FAB and the linguistic characteristics of event narratives. Participants recalled pleasant and unpleasant events and rated each event for its emotional intensity. Recalled events were then allocated to one of three experimental conditions: no disclosure, private verbal disclosure without a listener or social disclosure to another participant whose behaviour was experimentally manipulated. Participants again rated the emotional intensity of the events immediately after these manipulations and after a one-week delay. Verbal disclosure alone was not sufficient to enhance the FAB. However, social disclosure increased positive emotional intensity, regardless of the behaviour of the listener. Whilst talking to an interactive listener led unpleasant event memories to decrease in emotional intensity, talking to a non-responsive listener increased their negative emotional intensity. Further, listener behaviour influenced the extent of emotional expression in written event narratives. This study provides original evidence that listener behaviour during social disclosure is an important factor in the effects of social disclosure in the FAB.     

Responses to Positive Affect in Daily Life: Positive Rumination and Dampening Moderate the Association Between Daily Events and Depressive Symptoms

Depressive rumination has been strongly linked to the development and maintenance of depression; however, less attention has been paid to ruminative processes in response to positive affect, and fewer have examined these processes in daily life. The current study sought to address these gaps by exploring depressive rumination and two forms of responses to positive affect, dampening and positive rumination, under ecologically valid conditions using daily diary methodology. One hundred fifty-seven young adults completed 14-day end-of-day diaries assessing positive affect and depressive symptoms in relation to depressive rumination, responses to positive affect, and daily positive and negative events. Daily depressive rumination predicted stronger associations between negative events and daily depressive symptoms. Higher daily dampening was associated with higher daily depressive symptoms and decreased positive affect and predicted lower associations between daily positive events and improvements in mood (including reduced daily positive affect and increased daily depressive symptoms). Higher daily positive rumination was negatively associated with daily depressive symptoms and interacted with daily positive events such that positive rumination had a greater impact on depressed mood on days when positive experiences were low. Results indicate that both depressive rumination and responses to positive affect play a role in influencing daily mood and depressive symptoms.     

Depression history, depression vulnerability and the experience of everyday negative events

This study examined whether deficits in dealing with daily problems emerge before a depressive episode (i.e., pre-existing vulnerability) or after a depressive episode (i.e., psychosocial scar). Participants completed a 30-day daily diary in which they reported their most negative event of the day, their appraisals of that event, and their mood. Three years later, they completed a structured depression interview. The sample consisted of 350 college students, 24 of whom had a past history of depression and 54 of whom experienced a depressive episode subsequent to dairy completion. Multilevel modeling revealed that students with past depression blamed others more than the never-depressed and those with subsequent depression, which supported the scar hypothesis. In support of the vulnerability hypothesis, as compared to the never-depressed group, participants with past depression demonstrated steeper declines in positive mood on more stressful days but did not significantly differ from the subsequent depression group. Overall, our findings do not provide clear support for either hypothesis; however, this study is the first to use a daily diary design to directly compare individuals with past depression to individuals who would subsequently experience depression.     

Depression and empathic accuracy in couples: an interpersonal model of gender differences in depression

We examine the link between depression and empathic accuracy, the ability to infer other people's thoughts and feelings, as a possible mechanism underlying gender differences in the association between depression and interpersonal difficulties within intimate relationships. Fifty-one heterosexual couples completed questionnaires assessing depressive symptoms and participated in both a lab and a daily diary procedure assessing empathic accuracy. In the lab measures, women's (but not men's) higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with lower empathic accuracy regarding partners' thoughts and feelings. In the daily diary data, women's depressive symptoms were specifically associated with lower levels of empathic accuracy for negative feelings but not for positive feelings, and with lower levels of their partners' empathic accuracy for the women's negative feelings. Men's depressive symptoms were again unrelated to levels of empathic accuracy. Our findings suggest that depressive symptoms may have a stronger impact on interpersonal perception in intimate relationships among women than among men.     

Daily depression and cognitions about stress: evidence for a traitlike depressogenic cognitive style and the prediction of depressive symptoms in a prospective daily diary study

The authors examined the stability and dynamic structure of negative cognitions made to naturalistic stressors and the prediction of depressive symptoms in a daily diary study. Young adults reported on dispositional depression vulnerabilities at baseline, including a depressogenic cognitive style, dysfunctional attitudes, rumination, neuroticism, and initial depression, and then completed short diaries recording the inferences they made to the most negative event of the day along with their experience of depressive symptoms every day for 35 consecutive days. Daily cognitions about stressors exhibited moderate stability across time. A traitlike model, rather than a contextual one, explained this pattern of stability best. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses showed that individuals' dispositional depressogenic cognitive style, neuroticism, and their daily negative cognitions about stressors predicted fluctuations in daily depressive symptoms. Dispositional neuroticism and negative cognitive style interacted with daily negative cognitions in different ways to predict daily depressive symptoms.     

The regulatory benefits of high levels of affect perception accuracy: A process analysis of reactions to stressors in daily life

Individuals attuned to affective signals from the environment may possess an advantage in the emotion-regulation realm. In two studies (total n = 151), individual differences in affective perception accuracy were assessed in an objective, performance-based manner. Subsequently, the same individuals completed daily diary protocols in which daily stressor levels were reported as well as problematic states shown to be stress-reactive in previous studies. In both studies, individual differences in affect perception accuracy interacted with daily stressor levels to predict the problematic outcomes. Daily stressors precipitated problematic reactions-whether depressive feelings (Study 1) or somatic symptoms (Study 2)-at low levels of affect perception accuracy, but did not do so at high levels of affect perception accuracy. The findings support a regulatory view of such perceptual abilities. Implications for understanding emotion regulation processes, emotional intelligence, and individual differences in reactivity are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Autobiographical memories and views of the future: In relation to dysphoria

The present study investigated dysphoric individuals' self‐referential processing of autobiographical memories and future personal events, in relation to specificity and response latency. Dysphoric individuals (n  =  17) and nondysphoric controls (n  =  17) were selected from a larger sample based on self‐reported depression. Participants completed an autobiographical memory task (AMT) and a future event task (FET), using pleasant and unpleasant (anxiety‐relevant, depression‐relevant) emotional word cues. In response to each emotional cue, participants were required to access and write down a specific personal memory and future event, respectively. Consistent with the hypotheses, dysphoric individuals were less specific in describing pleasant and unpleasant experiences (particularly pleasant), irrespective of time condition. As expected, dysphoric individuals' specificity for distinct depression‐relevant and anxiety‐relevant experiences did not differ significantly. As predicted, all participants were less specific in describing future personal events than in recalling personal memories. As predicted, dysphoric individuals took longer to think of pleasant memories and pleasant future experiences than controls but, as expected, groups did not differ significantly on mean reaction times for past and future unpleasant experiences. Overall, the data showed a degree of consistency in participants' past and future‐oriented processing of self‐referential material. Although considerable research has investigated autobiographical memories in relation to emotional disturbance, the present findings suggest that constructing future emotional experiences is also an important aspect of mental health.     

Depressive symptoms predict inflexibly high levels of experiential avoidance in response to daily negative affect: a daily diary study

Experiential avoidance (EA) is an emotion-regulation strategy used to control or avoid unpleasant internal experiences. Despite the important role of avoidance in depressive disorders, there is relatively little research directly examining the role of EA in the development and maintenance of depression, and most of this research relies on measurement of EA as a global and stable personality trait. In this study we sought to extend the research on EA and depression by using a daily diary design and multilevel analysis to examine how the daily relationship between EA and negative affect (NA) varies as a function of baseline depressive symptoms. In order to achieve this goal we created a new state measure of EA assessing several avoidant behaviors. The findings revealed that participants with more depressive symptoms used more daily EA overall. Additionally, the difference in daily EA between those with higher versus lower depressive symptoms was greater on days when participants experienced less NA. This moderation effect was found only concurrently whereas one-day lagged analysis failed to reveal this effect. These findings provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that depression is associated with an inflexibly high level of avoidant emotion regulation.     

Effects of cognitive therapy for depression on daily stress-related variables

This study used a daily diary design to evaluate depressed patients' changes on daily stress-related variables during cognitive therapy (CT). Patients completed daily diaries on two week-long occasions: after the intake interview and again after the sixth session of CT. Patients also completed a measure of depressive symptoms before every treatment session. After six sessions of CT, patients reported a significant reduction in: (a) depressive symptoms; (b) daily sad affect (SA); (c) daily negative thoughts associated with the day's most stressful event; and (d) SA reactivity to daily stressors. In addition, patients reported a significant increase in: (e) daily positive affect (PA); and (f) SA reactivity to daily negative thoughts. The results suggest that CT has its intended effects on the daily lives of depressed adults, and highlight the value of a daily diary methodology for research on CT.     

Dispositional mindfulness moderates the relation between neuroticism and depressive symptoms

Negative emotional reactivity as measured by neuroticism has been shown to be an important risk factor for the development of depressive symptoms. This study investigated whether the ability to be mindful can protect against the negative effects of this temperamental vulnerability. An English community sample of N = 144 individuals who had completed a neuroticism questionnaire six years previously were assessed for current depressive symptoms and dispositional levels of mindfulness at points of assessment approximately one year apart. Dispositional mindfulness moderated the relation between neuroticism and current depressive symptoms: Neuroticism was significantly related to depression in those with low to medium levels of dispositional mindfulness but not in those with relatively high levels of mindfulness. Further analyzes focusing on particular mindfulness skills indicated that this effect was carried mostly by the ability to describe inner experience. The results suggest that dispositional mindfulness and particularly the ability to describe inner experience are helpful in dealing with negative emotional reactivity in a way that reduces the likelihood of depressive symptoms to develop.     

Emotional reactivity to daily events in major and minor depression

Although emotional dysfunction is an important aspect of major depressive disorder (MDD), it has rarely been studied in daily life. Peeters, Nicolson, Berkhof, Delespaul, and deVries (2003) observed a surprising mood-brightening effect when individuals with MDD reported greater reactivity to positive events. To better understand this phenomenon, we conducted a multimethod assessment of emotional reactivity to daily life events, obtaining detailed reports of appraisals and event characteristics using the experience-sampling method and the Day Reconstruction Method (Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2004) in 35 individuals currently experiencing a major depressive episode, 26 in a minor depressive (mD) episode, and 38 never-depressed healthy controls. Relative to healthy controls, both mood-disordered groups reported greater daily negative affect and lower positive affect and reported events as less pleasant, more unpleasant, and more stressful. Importantly, MDD and mD individuals reported greater reductions in negative affect following positive events, an effect that converged across assessment methods and was not explained by differences in prevailing affect, event appraisals, or medications. Implications of this curious mood-brightening effect are discussed.     

Dispositional mindfulness moderates the relation between neuroticism and depressive symptoms

Negative emotional reactivity as measured by neuroticism has been shown to be an important risk factor for the development of depressive symptoms. This study investigated whether the ability to be mindful can protect against the negative effects of this temperamental vulnerability. An English community sample of N = 144 individuals who had completed a neuroticism questionnaire six years previously were assessed for current depressive symptoms and dispositional levels of mindfulness at points of assessment approximately one year apart. Dispositional mindfulness moderated the relation between neuroticism and current depressive symptoms: Neuroticism was significantly related to depression in those with low to medium levels of dispositional mindfulness but not in those with relatively high levels of mindfulness. Further analyzes focusing on particular mindfulness skills indicated that this effect was carried mostly by the ability to describe inner experience. The results suggest that dispositional mindfulness and particularly the ability to describe inner experience are helpful in dealing with negative emotional reactivity in a way that reduces the likelihood of depressive symptoms to develop.     

Sleep quality in healthy and mood-disordered persons predicts daily life emotional reactivity

Disordered sleep has been linked to impaired emotional functioning in healthy and depressed individuals. Little is known, however, about how chronic sleep problems influence emotional reactivity in everyday life. Participants with major or minor unipolar depressive disorder (n?=?60) and healthy controls (n?=?35) reported on sleep and emotional responses to daily life events using a computerised Experience Sampling Method. We examined whether impaired sleep quality influenced emotional reactivity to daily events, and if this relationship was altered by unipolar mood disorders. Among healthy individuals, sleep difficulties were associated with enhanced negative affect (NA) to unpleasant events and a dulled response to neutral events. However, among mood-disordered persons, sleep difficulties were associated with higher NA across all types of everyday life events. Impaired sleep quality differentially affects daily life emotional reactions as a function of depression.     

The Moderating Effect of Depression Symptoms on the Concordance between the Experience and Verbal Disclosure of Emotion

Within-person studies of emotional disclosure have found evidence of a disclosure-discordance effect of depression, whereby the positive association between the intensity of one’s emotional experience and verbal disclosure of that experience weakens with increasing depression symptoms. Because these previous studies have exclusively been naturalistic ones, we examined the disclosure-discordance effect of depression in the lab. Participants (N?=?115) completed a measure of depression symptoms and viewed a series of emotionally evocative photographs. Emotion-expressive behavior while viewing each photograph was rated by judges, subjective emotional experience was assessed via self-report, and emotional disclosure just after the photograph was viewed was rated by different judges. Multilevel analyses indicated that depression symptoms moderated the association between the behavioral (i.e., facial) expression of emotion intensity and disclosure of emotion. Moderation was not supported in analyses with self-reported emotional intensity as a predictor. These findings partly supported the disclosure-discordance effect, and they inform methods of empirically examining the effect of depression symptoms on the verbal disclosure of emotion.

     

不同抑郁症状青少年调节不同强度情绪时策略选择的差异

最新研究发现,情绪强度会影响健康个体的情绪调节策略选择。然而,至今尚未有研究考察情绪强度对不同抑郁症状青少年策略选择的影响。对此,本研究通过流调中心用抑郁量表划分出无抑郁、阈下抑郁和抑郁症青少年,进而考察其在面对高-低强度积极-消极日常情绪事件时选择认知重评和认知沉浸的差异。结果发现：当面对高强度积极情绪、低强度积极情绪和低强度消极情绪时,三组被试的策略选择均无显著差异;当面对高强度消极情绪时,无抑郁青少年比阈下抑郁和抑郁症青少年更多选择认知重评而更少选择认知沉浸,但阈下抑郁和抑郁症青少年之间无显著差异。结果表明：不同抑郁症状青少年在面对不同强度和效价情绪时的情绪调节策略选择存在差异,表现为高强度消极情绪下抑郁症状越多的青少年越少选择认知重评而越多选择认知沉浸。这一发现有助于识别和干预青少年的抑郁症状。