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 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.     

Temporal patterns of anxious and depressed mood in generalized anxiety disorder: a daily diary study

Research suggests that anxiety disorders tend to temporally precede depressive disorders, a finding potentially relevant to understanding comorbidity. The current study used diary methods to determine whether daily anxious mood also temporally precedes daily depressed mood. 55 participants with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and history of depressive symptoms completed a 21-day daily diary tracking anxious and depressed mood. Daily anxious and depressed moods were concurrently associated. Daily anxious mood predicted later depressed mood at a variety of time lags, with significance peaking at a two-day lag. Depressed mood generally did not predict later anxious mood. Results suggest that the temporal antecedence of anxiety over depression extends to daily symptoms in GAD. Implications for the refinement of comorbidity models, including causal theories, are discussed.     

Reported exposure and emotional reactivity to daily stressors: the roles of adult age and global perceived stress

A central goal of daily stress research is to identify resilience and vulnerability factors associated with exposure and reactivity to daily stressors. The present study examined how age differences and global perceptions of stress relate to exposure and emotional reactivity to daily stressors. Sixty-seven younger (M age = 20) and 116 older (M age = 80) adults completed a daily stress diary and measures of positive and negative affect on 6 days over a 14-day period. Participants also completed a measure of global perceived stress. Results revealed that reported exposure to daily stressors is reduced in old age but that emotional reactivity to daily stressors did not differ between younger and older adults. Global perceived stress was associated with greater reported exposure to daily stressors in older adults and greater stress-related increases in negative affect in younger adults. Furthermore, across days on which daily stressors were reported, intraindividual variability in the number and severity of stressors reported was associated with increased negative affect, but only among younger adults.     

Emotional inertia contributes to depressive symptoms beyond perseverative thinking

The autocorrelation or inertia of negative affect reflects how much negative emotions carry over from moment to moment and has been associated with increased depressive symptoms. In this study, we posed three challenges to this association by examining: (1) whether emotional inertia is relevant for depressive symptoms when assessed on a longer timescale than usual; (2) whether inertia is uniquely related to depressive symptoms after controlling for perseverative thoughts; and (3) whether inertia is related to depressive symptoms over and above the within-person association between affect and perseverative thoughts. Participants (N = 101) provided ratings of affect and perseverative thoughts for 100 days; depressive symptoms were reported before and after the study, and again after 2.5 years. Day-to-day emotional inertia was related to depressive symptoms over and above trait and state perseverative thoughts. Moreover, inertia predicted depressive symptoms when adjusting for its association with perseverative thoughts. These findings establish the relevance of emotional inertia in depressive symptoms independent of perseverative thoughts.     

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).     

Reciprocal Prospective Effects of Momentary Cognitions and Affect in Daily Life and Mood Reactivity Toward Daily Events in Remitted Recurrent Depression

Major depressive disorder is a recurrent condition. Potential risk factors for future episodes are maladaptive cognitions, such as rumination and unfavorable reactivity toward negative daily events. Positive thoughts and positive daily events, in contrast, could act as a buffer against mood deterioration. The aim of the present study is to (a) examine differences in daily affect and cognitions in remitted depressed patients with a history of recurrent episodes (rMDD) and healthy controls, (b) analyze reciprocal prospective effects of momentary cognitions and affect, and (c) investigate effects of daily events on affect and cognitions in both groups. A sample of N = 102 participants underwent an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) phase of 5 consecutive days, where rMDD patients (n = 51) and healthy controls (n = 51) indicated their momentary rumination, positive thoughts, affect, and the occurrence of daily events 10 times per day. Via multilevel lag models, we found higher rumination to predict a decrease of positive affect (PA) in the rMDD group, but no effect of rumination on subsequent negative affect (NA) in either group. Higher positive thoughts predicted an increase in PA and a decrease in NA, similarly strong in both groups. Regarding daily events, rMDD patients reported a stronger increase in NA and rumination following negative daily events compared to controls, whereas an observed subsequent decrease of PA and positive thoughts was not moderated by group. Following positive daily events, rMDD patients showed a stronger increase in PA and positive thoughts and a stronger decrease in NA and rumination than controls. For interventions targeting relapse prevention, our results indicate the implementation of strategies fostering the responsiveness to positive events and the up-regulation of positive affect.     

Intraindividual relations between the intensity and disclosure of daily emotional events: The moderating role of depressive symptoms

Individuals with high levels of depressive symptoms tend to engage in lower levels of emotional disclosure than individuals who are lower in depressive symptoms. However, little is known about how depressive symptoms relate to the intraindividual relation between daily disclosure and the intensity of the daily events. The authors addressed these relations using a daily diary methodology. College students (N = 239) completed a measure of depression symptoms. They then completed measures of the intensity of the day's most unpleasant event and their disclosure of that event each day for 7 days. Results indicated that depression moderated the intensity-disclosure relation such that depression symptoms were associated with diminished emotional disclosure for high-intensity events but not for low-intensity events. Individuals with relatively higher levels of depressive symptoms also experienced unpleasant daily events at a higher intensity level than did individuals with relatively fewer symptoms. Sex differences emerged such that men were less likely than women to disclose high-intensity negative events. These findings extend the use of the diary methodology to the study of emotional disclosure and also suggest possible interventions for counseling psychology practitioners.     

Attachment Representations and Maternal Confidence: The Mediating Role of Postnatal Depressive Symptoms and Negative Thoughts

Attachment security can act as an inner resource to promote women’s adjustment to motherhood. However, the mechanisms explaining the relationship between attachment representations and maternal adaptation outcomes are not well understood. This study aimed to examine the direct and indirect effects of attachment representations on maternal confidence, through postpartum negative automatic thoughts and depressive symptoms. The sample consisted of 387 postpartum women who completed a cross-sectional online survey including measures of attachment representations, depressive symptoms, postpartum negative automatic thoughts and maternal confidence. Our results showed a significant relationship between more insecure attachment representations and higher depressive symptoms (p?<?.001), but also with more frequent postpartum negative automatic thoughts (p?<?.001); depressive symptoms and postpartum negative automatic thoughts were also inversely associated with women’s maternal confidence (p?<?.001). Moreover, indirect effects of attachment representations on maternal confidence were found, but only through postpartum negative thoughts [attachment-related anxiety: 95% CI?=??0.03/?0.01; attachment-related avoidance: 95% CI?=??0.05/?0.01]. The results of the present study emphasize the important role of the cognitive component of depressive symptomatology (postpartum negative automatic thoughts) in the relationship between attachment representations and maternal confidence, allowing to draw specific implications. We highlight the implications for clinical practice during the perinatal period to address both negative thoughts and women’s maternal confidence.     

Negative and Positive Emotion Responses to Daily School Problems: Links to Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

Examining emotion reactivity and recovery following minor problems in daily life can deepen our understanding of how stress affects child mental health. This study assessed children’s immediate and delayed emotion responses to daily problems at school, and examined their correlations with psychological symptoms. On 5 consecutive weekdays, 83 fifth graders (M = 10.91 years, SD = 0.53, 51% female) completed brief diary forms 5 times per day, providing repeated ratings of school problems and emotions. They also completed a one-time questionnaire about symptoms of depression, and parents and teachers rated child internalizing and externalizing problems. Using multilevel modeling techniques, we assessed within-person daily associations between school problems and negative and positive emotion at school and again at bedtime. On days when children experienced more school problems, they reported more negative emotion and less positive emotion at school, and at bedtime. There were reliable individual differences in emotion reactivity and recovery. Individual-level indices of emotion responses derived from multilevel models were correlated with child psychological symptoms. Children who showed more negative emotion reactivity reported more depressive symptoms. Multiple informants described fewer internalizing problems among children who showed better recovery by bedtime, even after controlling for children’s average levels of exposure to school problems. Diary methods can extend our understanding of the links between daily stress, emotions and child mental health. Recovery following stressful events may be an important target of research and intervention for child internalizing problems.     

Fibromyalgia: the role of sleep in affect and in negative event reactivity and recovery

OBJECTIVE: Fibromyalgia (FM) syndrome is a chronic pain condition characterized by diffuse muscle pain, increased negative mood, and sleep disturbance. Until recently, sleep disturbance in persons with FM has been modeled as the result of the disease process or its associated pain. The current study examined sleep disturbance (i.e., sleep duration and sleep quality) as a predictor of daily affect, stress reactivity, and stress recovery. DESIGN AND MEASURES: A hybrid of daily diary and ecological momentary assessment methodology was used to evaluate the psychosocial functioning of 89 women with FM. Participants recorded numeric ratings of pain, fatigue, and positive and negative affect 3 times throughout the day for 30 consecutive days. At the end of each day, participants completed daily diary records of positive and negative life events. In addition, participants reported on their sleep duration and sleep quality each morning. RESULTS: After accounting for the effects of positive events, negative events, and pain on daily affect scores, it was found that sleep duration and quality were prospectively related to affect and fatigue. Furthermore, the effects of inadequate sleep on negative affect were cumulative. In addition, an inadequate amount of sleep prevented affective recovery from days with a high number of negative events. CONCLUSIONS: These results lend support to the hypothesis that sleep is a component of allostatic load and has an upstream role in daily functioning.     

Normal aging dampens the link between intrusive thoughts and negative affect in reaction to daily stressors

We charted daily variations in intrusive thoughts to gain access to adult age differences in affective reactivity to daily stressors. On 100 days, 101 younger and 103 older adults reported stressors, intrusive thoughts, and negative affect. Although increments in intrusive thoughts were similar in both age groups on days with stressors, older adults' negative affect increased less than younger adults' on such days. In addition, (a) levels of intrusive thoughts and negative affect across study time were positively associated; (b) days with increased thoughts were days with increased negative affect; and (c) experiencing above-average intrusive thoughts about stressors strengthened affective reactions to stress. Relative to younger adults, all three associations were reduced in older adults. We tentatively conclude that normal aging dampens the stress-induced link between intrusive thoughts and affect. This dampening may contribute to preserved affective well-being and reduced affective reactivity to daily stress in old age.     

Beyond words: Sensory properties of depressive thoughts

Verbal thoughts (such as negative cognitions) and sensory phenomena (such as visual mental imagery) are usually conceptualised as distinct mental experiences. The present study examined to what extent depressive thoughts are accompanied by sensory experiences and how this is associated with symptom severity, insight of illness and quality of life. A large sample of mildly to moderately depressed patients (N = 356) was recruited from multiple sources and asked about sensory properties of their depressive thoughts in an online study. Diagnostic status and symptom severity were established over a telephone interview with trained raters. Sensory properties of negative thoughts were reported by 56.5% of the sample (i.e., sensation in at least one sensory modality). The highest prevalence was seen for bodily (39.6%) followed by auditory (30.6%) and visual (27.2%) sensations. Patients reporting sensory properties of thoughts showed more severe psychopathological symptoms than those who did not. The degree of perceptuality was marginally associated with quality of life. The findings support the notion that depressive thoughts are not only verbal but commonly accompanied by sensory experiences. The perceptuality of depressive thoughts and the resulting sense of authenticity may contribute to the emotional impact and pervasiveness of such thoughts, making them difficult to dismiss for their holder.     

Differential cognitive response to a mood challenge following successful cognitive therapy or pharmacotherapy for unipolar depression

This study examined the nature of cognitive reactivity to mood changes in formerly depressed patients. Patients who recovered either through cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT; N = 25) or through pharmacotherapy (PT; N = 29) completed self-reported ratings of dysfunctional attitudes before and after a negative mood induction procedure. In response to similar levels of induced sad mood, PT patients showed a significant increase in dysfunctional cognitions compared with patients in the CBT group. To evaluate the effects of such cognitive reactivity on the subsequent course of depression, follow-up analyses reassessed 30 patients several years after initial testing. Results indicated that patients' reactions to the mood induction procedure were predictive of depressive relapse. These findings argue for differential effects of treatment on cognitive reactivity to mood induction and for the link between such reactivity and risk for later depressive relapse.     

Affective and Autonomic Reactivity During Parent–Child Interactions in Depressed and Non-Depressed Mothers and Their Adolescent Offspring

Depression presents risks that are profound and intergenerational, yet research on the association of depression with the physiological processes that might be associated with impaired mental and physical health has only recently been contextualized within the family environment. Participants in this multi-method case–control study were 180 mother-adolescent dyads (50% mothers with a history of depression treatment and current depressive symptoms). In order to examine the association between maternal depression and affective and autonomic reactivity amongst these mothers and their adolescent offspring we collected self-reported measures of positive and negative affect, as well as measures of cardiovascular and electrodermal autonomic activity, during mother-adolescent interaction tasks. Findings indicated that depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring exhibited greater self-reported negative affect reactivity during a problem-solving interaction and blunted (i.e., low) sympathetic activity as measured via skin conductance level across both interaction tasks. These effects remained significant after controlling for a range of potential covariates, including medication use, sex, age, adolescents own mental health symptoms, and behavior of the other interactant, along with correcting for multiple comparisons. Findings indicate that depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring both exhibit patterns of affect and physiology during interactions that are different from those of non-depressed mothers and their offspring, including increased negative affect reactivity during negative interactions and blunted sympathetic activity across both positive and negative interactions. These findings have potential implications for understanding the role of family processes in the intergenerational transmission of risk for depressive disorders.

     

Relationships Between Meaning in Life,Social and Achievement Events,and Positive and Negative Affect in Daily Life

Research on meaning in life has generally focused on global meaning judgments. This study examined how people's daily experiences, represented by events that occur in daily life, influence their perceived sense of meaning on a daily basis. One hundred sixty‐two college students completed daily reports for 2 weeks. We examined the relationships among daily social and achievement events, daily positive and negative affect, and daily meaning in life. In addition, we tested the possible moderating influence of depressive symptoms on these relationships. Positive daily social and achievement events were related to greater daily meaning, above and beyond the contributions of daily positive and negative affect. Negative social and achievement events were related to less daily meaning, and negative achievement events covaried with daily meaning above and beyond positive and negative affect. Depression moderated the relationships between positive events and meaning, such that people who reported more depressive symptoms had greater increases in daily meaning in response to positive social and achievement events than individuals who reported fewer symptoms. These findings suggest the important role that daily events may play in fluctuations in people's affective experiences and sense of meaning in life.     

The symptom perception hypothesis revised: depression and anxiety play different roles in concurrent and retrospective physical symptom reporting

According to the classic symptom perception hypothesis (Costa & McCrae, 1987; Watson & Pennebaker, 1989), the global predisposition to frequently experience a variety of negative emotions-that is, neuroticism (N) or trait negative affectivity (NA)-is associated with inflated physical symptom reporting. We tested a revision of this hypothesis, which posits distinctive roles for depression and anxiety in the physical symptom experience. Three studies tested predictions from the revised symptom perception hypothesis: (a) that depressive affect should be related to inflated retrospective physical symptom reports and (b) that anxious affect should be related to inflated concurrent, or momentary, physical symptom reports. Study 1 assessed the relations among N/NA, depressive affect, and recall of physical symptoms experienced in the previous 3 weeks. Depressive affect was uniquely and positively associated with recalling more symptoms. When entered with depressive affect in multiple regression analyses, neuroticism was not associated with level of symptoms recalled. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to anxious, depressed, angry, happy, or neutral mood inductions and then reported about concurrent symptom experience. Participants in the anxious mood condition reported significantly more concurrent physical symptoms than did those in the other 4 conditions. In Study 3, anxious, depressed, or neutral mood was induced, followed by assessment of both concurrent and retrospective physical symptoms. Those assigned to the anxious mood induction reported more concurrent symptoms, while those in the depressed mood condition reported having experienced more symptoms in the past. These findings are consistent with the idea that encoding and retrieval processes, which are differentially associated with anxious versus depressed affect, influence different aspects of physical symptom reporting. The results have implications for self-diagnosis, medical treatment-seeking, and care, and potential insights about other complex social and interpersonal behaviors are discussed.     

The Role of Relationships in Understanding the Alexithymia–Depression Link

Alexithymia is associated with increased depressive symptoms in both clinical and community samples. One way that alexithymia may lead to depression is through its impact on interpersonal relationships. Individuals with alexithymia report lower perceived social support, intimacy, and relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, poor relationship functioning is a clear risk factor for depressive symptoms. Given the established alexithymia–depression link and marital dysfunction–depression link, a logical next step is to examine whether relationship dysfunction (low social support, intimacy, negative relationship behaviours, and relationship dissatisfaction) mediates the association between alexithymia and depressive symptoms. The hypothesized mediation model was assessed in a sample of 104 community couples with two analytical approaches—first with cross‐sectional measures using path analysis and second with daily diary measures collected over a seven‐day period using a multilevel modelling approach. Poor relationship functioning mediated the association between alexithymia and depressed mood in the daily diary data and partially mediated that association with the cross‐sectional measures. These results identify alexithymia as an important variable in understanding the marital functioning–depression association, and this finding has implications for treatment. Copyright © 2012 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Neuroticism,Life Events and Negative Thoughts in the Development of Depression in Adolescent Girls

Theories of depression suggest that cognitive and environmental factors may explain the relationship between personality and depression. This study tested such a model in early adolescence, incorporating neuroticism, stress-generation and negative automatic thoughts in the development of depressive symptoms. Participants (896 girls, mean age 12.3 years) completed measures of personality and depressive symptoms, and 12 months later completed measures of depressive symptoms, recent stressors and negative automatic thoughts. Path analysis supported a model in which neuroticism serves as a distal vulnerability for depression, conferring a risk of experiencing dependent negative events and negative automatic thoughts, which fully mediate the effect of neuroticism on later depression. A second path supported a maintenance model for depression in adolescence, with initial levels of depression predicting dependent negative events, negative automatic thoughts and subsequent depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, initial depression was also associated with later independent life events. This study establishes potential mechanisms through which personality contributes to the development of depression in adolescent girls.