Depression and interpersonal stress: The mediating role of emotion regulation

Maladaptive emotion regulation is a risk factor for depression when an individual is experiencing stressful interpersonal events. Although emotion regulation has several different dimensions, little is known about which of these mediate the relationship between interpersonal stress and depressive symptoms. The current study examined self-ratings of emotion regulation, interpersonal stress, and depression in a sample of non-clinical undergraduate students (N = 152). Our results indicated that two facets of emotion regulation (i.e., lack of emotional clarity and limited access to emotion regulation strategies) fully mediate the relationship between interpersonal stress and depression. Hence, to minimize depressive symptoms when experiencing interpersonal stress, our findings suggest that it is important for individuals to be clear about their feelings and to attempt to transition from negative feelings to alternative feelings.     

Gender and age differences in emotion regulation strategies and their relationship to depressive symptoms

We examined differences between men and women, and between young, middle and older age adults in emotion regulation strategies (rumination, suppression, reappraisal, problem-solving, acceptance, social support) and the relationships between these strategies and depressive symptoms. Women were more likely than men to report using several different emotion regulation strategies, and these gender differences were significant even after statistically controlling for gender differences in depressive symptoms. Use of most strategies decreased with age, with two exceptions: (1) use of suppression increased with age for women but not for men and (2) use of acceptance did not decrease with age for women. Use of maladaptive strategies was associated with more depressive symptoms in all age groups and both genders, yet, the use of adaptive strategies generally was not related to lower levels depressive symptoms across groups.     

Specificity and detail in autobiographical memory: Same or different constructs?

Research on autobiographical memory has focused on whether memories are coded as specific (i.e., describe a single event that happened at a particular time and place). Although some theory and research suggests that the amount of detail in autobiographical memories reflects a similar underlying construct as memory specificity, past research has not investigated whether these variables converge. Therefore, the present study compared the proportion of specific memories and the amount of detail embedded in memory responses to cue words. Results demonstrated that memory detail and proportion of specific memories were not correlated with each other and showed different patterns of association with other conceptually relevant variables. When responses to neutral cue words were examined in multiple linear and logistic regression analyses, the proportion of specific memories uniquely predicted less depressive symptoms, low emotional avoidance, lower emotion reactivity, better executive control and lower rumination, whereas the amount of memory detail uniquely predicted the presence of depression diagnosis, as well as greater depressive symptoms, subjective stress, emotion reactivity and rumination. Findings suggest that the ability to retrieve specific memories and the tendency to retrieve detailed personal memories reflect different constructs that have different implications in the development of emotional distress.     

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.     

Emotional distress and positive and negative memories from military deployment: the influence of PTSD symptoms and time

During military deployment, soldiers are confronted with both negative and positive events. What is remembered and how it affects an individual is influenced by not only the perceived emotion of the event, but also the emotional state of the individual. Here we examined the most negative and most positive deployment memories from a company of 337 soldiers who were deployed together to Afghanistan. We examined how the level of emotional distress of the soldiers and the valence of the memory were related to the emotional intensity, experience of reliving, rehearsal and coherence of the memories, and how the perceived impact of these memories changed over time. We found that soldiers with higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were more affected by both their negative and positive memories, compared with soldiers with lower levels of PTSD symptoms. Emotional intensity of the most negative memory increased over time in the group with highest levels of PTSD symptoms, but dropped in the other groups. The present study adds to the literature on emotion and autobiographical memory and how this relationship interacts with an individual’s present level of emotional distress and the passage of time.     

Self-Compassion and Emotional Intelligence in Adolescence: A Multigroup Mediational Study of the Impact of Shame Memories on Depressive Symptoms

Several studies have highlighted the adaptive role of self-compassion on human suffering and on a wide range of psychopathological conditions. Extensive research has shown that emotional intelligence has been associated with well-being, mental and physical health and quality of interpersonal relationships. We set out to explore the mediating role of self-compassion and emotional intelligence on the relationship between shame traumatic memories and depressive symptoms, and to explore if these were different between female and male adolescents. The sample was composed of 1101 adolescents from general population, whose age ranged from 14 to 18 years. Participants filled out a battery of self-report questionnaires designed to measure shame traumatic memories, self-compassion, emotional intelligence and depressive symptoms. Correlational analysis showed that in male and female adolescents, shame traumatic memories are associated with more depressive symptoms and with lower levels of self-compassion and emotional intelligence. Multigroup analysis showed that emotional intelligence has a greater impact on depression in female adolescents. Also, the impact of shame traumatic memories on depression is stronger in males, even though females report shame traumatic memories as more impactful. This study provides preliminary evidence that self-compassion and emotional intelligence are important emotion regulation processes for depressive symptoms in adolescence.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory as a predictor of the course of depression: A meta-analysis

Overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) is a robust phenomenon in depression, but the extent to which OGM predicts the course of depression is not well-established. This meta-analysis synthesized data from 15 studies to examine the degree to which OGM 1) correlates with depressive symptoms at follow-up, and 2) predicts depressive symptoms at follow-up over and above initial depressive symptoms. Although the effects are small, specific and categoric/overgeneral memories generated during the Autobiographical Memory Test significantly predicted the course of depression. Fewer specific memories and more categoric/overgeneral memories were associated with higher follow-up depressive symptoms, and predicted higher follow-up symptoms over and above initial symptoms. Potential moderators were also examined. The age and clinical depression status of participants, as well as the length of follow-up between the two depressive symptom assessments, significantly moderated the predictive relationship between OGM and the course of depression. The predictive relationship between specific memories and follow-up depressive symptoms became greater with increasing age and a shorter length of follow-up, and the predictive relationship was stronger for participants with clinical depression diagnoses than for nonclinical participants. These findings highlight OGM as a predictor of the course of depression, and future studies should investigate the mechanisms underlying this relationship.     

The Role of Family Routines in the Intergenerational Transmission of Depressive Symptoms between Parents and their Adolescent Children

Whereas previous research on environmental factors implicated in the intergenerational transmission of depression has tended to focus on the role of parenting quality (e.g., harshness), the current study sought to assess whether structural aspects of families may contribute to depression-relevant affective and immune processes in youths. Specifically, the present study examined the role of family routines in linking parental depressive symptoms to youth emotion regulation, a depression-relevant marker of low-grade inflammation, and depressive symptoms in youths. 261 parent-adolescent dyads reported on their own depressive symptoms, family routines, and youths’ emotion regulation abilities. In addition, peripheral blood was drawn from youths to assess levels of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 (IL-6). Path analyses provided support for a model in which parental depressive symptoms related to fewer family routines, which in turn were associated with higher IL-6 and depressive symptoms in youths as well as marginally associated with worse youth emotion regulation. Moreover, family routines were found to statistically account for part of the association between parent- and youth- depressive symptoms. Together, these results suggest that family routines may represent an additional facet of the family environment that can potentially contribute to the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms.     

Internalizing Symptoms in Female Adolescents: Associations with Emotional Awareness and Emotion Regulation

The transition into adolescence involves a number of changes that for many adolescents result in increased negative affect and internalizing symptoms, especially for females. In the current study we examined the direct and indirect effects of emotional awareness on internalizing symptoms by exploring the extent to which certain emotion regulation strategies influence this relationship. Participants were 123 female adolescents aged 13–16 years (M = 14.51 years) who completed measures of emotional awareness, emotion regulation (emotional reappraisal and expressive suppression), and symptoms of depression and social anxiety. Two multiple indirect effect models were conducted including both reappraisal and suppression (one for each of the dependent variables, depression and social anxiety) via the bootstrapping method. Results found that reappraisal accounted for the effect of emotional awareness on depressive symptoms but suppression accounted for the effect of emotional awareness on social anxiety symptoms. Results suggest that emotion regulation strategies play an important role in determining depressive and social anxiety symptoms and are associated with an adolescent’s level of emotional awareness.     

Emotion Beliefs,Emotion Regulation,and Emotional Experiences in Daily Life

One potential factor that could influence how individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression cope with upsetting events in their daily lives is the beliefs that these individuals hold about whether emotions are malleable or fixed. The current study adopted an experience sampling approach to examine how the beliefs about emotion’s malleability related to daily positive and negative affect and daily emotion regulation efforts among individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression (N = 84). Results demonstrated that individuals having at least moderate symptoms of depression who held more malleable beliefs about emotions reported decreased negative affect both overall during the day and specifically in response to daily upsetting events. Additionally, these individuals who held more malleable beliefs about their emotions also reported more daily use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions in response to upsetting daily events. Results from the current study extend previous work examining the relationship between emotion malleability beliefs, emotional experiences, and emotion regulation to examine these relationships in people who are moderately depressed as they navigate the emotional landscape of their daily lives.     

The Effects of Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms on Daily Positive Emotion Regulation

Individuals with anxiety and depressive symptoms exhibit disturbances in positive emotion regulation, which may hinder full recovery. By comparison, individuals with strong beliefs regarding their capacity to “savor” or maintain positive emotions (i.e., savoring beliefs) display more adaptive positive emotion regulation. The present daily diary study explores three momentary processes involved in positive emotion regulation, namely positive emotion reactivity, regulatory goals, and regulatory effectiveness, and examines the comparative effects of baseline anxiety and depressive symptoms versus savoring beliefs on such processes in real-life contexts. A sample of 164 nonclinical undergraduates provided baseline measures of anxiety and depressive symptom severity and savoring beliefs prior to completing 14 daily assessments of positive emotions and emotion regulatory responses to daily positive events. Results indicated that higher baseline anxiety and depressive symptom severity were associated with decreased positive emotion reactivity and increased down-regulation of positive emotions; higher baseline savoring beliefs were associated with increased positive emotion reactivity, decreased down-regulation and increased up-regulation of positive emotions. Potential clinical implications are discussed.     

Longitudinal Study of Life Events,Well-Being,Emotional Regulation and Depressive Symptomatology

Etiological research regarding adolescent depression is relatively recent and longitudinal studies are needed to explicate the mechanisms by which risk and protective factors impact the development of depression. This investigation evaluated the effects of time 1 predictors (e.g., depressive symptoms, life events, subjective well-being, and emotion regulation strategies) on depressive symptoms assessed at time 2 (1 year later). The sample comprised 182 Portuguese adolescents, aged 12–16. Time 1 depressive symptoms and psychological well-being were significant predictors of time 2 depressive symptoms. Time 1 rumination predicted time 2 depressive symptoms, but time 2 brooding mediated this effect. Time 1 life events did not predict time 2 depressive symptomatology. This study identified several factors that seem to play an important role in the development of depressive symptomatology. Previous depressive symptomatology and well-being had a significant effect in this process and the relationship between rumination in time 1 and depressive symptoms at time 2 (1 year later) was fully mediated by brooding at time 2. Given these results, implications for prevention and treatment of depression include addressing risk factors like early depressive symptoms, rumination and brooding, and increasing the protective effect of psychological well-being.     

Emotion Regulation Difficulties During and After Partial Hospitalization Treatment Across Eating Disorders

Emotion regulation deficits are associated with eating disorder (ED) symptoms, regardless of eating disorder diagnosis. Thus, recent treatment approaches for EDs, such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), have focused on teaching patients skills to better regulate emotions. The present study examined changes in emotion regulation among adult patients with EDs during DBT-oriented partial hospital treatment, and at follow-up (M[SD] = 309.58[144.59] days from discharge). Exploratory analyses examined associations between changes in emotion regulation and ED symptoms. Patients with anorexia nervosa, restricting (AN-R, n = 77), and binge-eating/purging subtype (AN-BP, n = 46), or bulimia nervosa (BN, n = 118) completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) at admission, discharge, and follow-up. Patients with BN demonstrated significant improvements across all facets of emotion dysregulation from admission to discharge and maintained improvements at follow-up. Although patients with AN-BP demonstrated statistically significant improvements on overall emotion regulation, impulsivity, and acceptance, awareness, and clarity of emotions, from admission to discharge, these improvements were not significant at follow-up. Patients with AN-R demonstrated statistically significant improvements on overall emotion dysregulation from treatment admission to discharge. Changes in emotion regulation were moderately correlated with changes in ED symptoms over time. Results support different trajectories of emotion regulation symptom change in DBT-oriented partial hospital treatment across ED diagnoses, with patients with BN demonstrating the most consistent significant improvements.     

Do Children’s Attributions Mediate the Link Between Parental Conditional Regard and Child Depression and Emotion?

Both parental conditional regard for academics and depressogenic attributions are related to detrimental psychological outcomes for children. Here we examine associations among parental conditional negative regard, child depressogenic attributions, child depressive symptoms, and emotion reactivity in children between the ages of 8 and 12, as well as whether children’s self-reported and behavioral attributions for negative events mediate associations between parental conditional negative regard for academics with children’s depressive symptoms and emotion reactivity. In Study 1 (N?=?108, M _age ?=?9.73, 50 male), children’s self-reported attributions for hypothetical events mediated the link between parental conditional negative regard and child depressive symptoms. In Study 2 (N?=?104, M _age ?=?10.28, 54 male), children attempted an impossible puzzle task while their skin conductance level was monitored, after which they completed an interview that was coded for spontaneous attributions for failure. Children’s spontaneous attributions mediated the link between parental conditional negative regard and child emotion reactivity, but not depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that children’s attributions may be a mechanism through which parental conditional negative regard is related to children’s depressive symptoms and emotion reactivity during a performance challenge. These results have implications for developmental models of depression risk and potential areas for clinical interventions with both children and their parents.     

Ruminative Inertia,Emotion Regulation,and Depression: A Daily-Diary Study

Emotional suppression and cognitive reappraisal are emotion regulation strategies that have been linked to the severity of depression. Recent research has shown that greater ruminative inertia (i.e., rumination that is more resistant to change across time) is also associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in clinical samples. However, it is unknown how tendencies to use suppression or reappraisal might be related to the inertia of rumination from day to day. After completing a baseline assessment of depressive symptoms and trait emotional suppression and cognitive reappraisal use, undergraduates (n = 94) completed daily-diary questionnaires assessing rumination for two weeks. Both higher depressive symptoms and greater tendencies to use suppression predicted stronger ruminative inertia, while tendencies to use reappraisal were unrelated to ruminative inertia. These results suggest that maladaptive emotion regulation strategies may contribute to a pattern of rumination that is more resistant to change over time. They also provide the first evidence that ruminative inertia is positively associated with depressive symptoms in a nonclinical sample.     

The Interaction of Mood and Rumination in Depression: Effects on Mood Maintenance and Mood-Congruent Autobiographical Memory

Rumination is a response to distress in which individuals focus repetitively on their feelings and the causes and consequences of those feelings. When induced to ruminate, dysphorics exhibit more negative mood and recall more negative memories, but these effects are not seen in nondysphorics. This pattern of results could be due to trait-like differences between dysphoric and nondysphoric individuals, or to the high levels of negative affect that dysphorics are experiencing at the time of rumination. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of pre-rumination mood on post-rumination mood and subsequent memory. Participants scoring high or low in depressive symptoms were assigned to either a positive or negative emotion induction prior to ruminating and completing an autobiographical memory task. Analysis of self-reported mood indicates that both emotion inductions were effective. Surprisingly, all participants returned to baseline mood levels following the rumination induction, and emotion induction had no effect on the negativity of the memories recalled. Dysphorics recalled significantly more negative memories than nondysphorics, regardless of whether positive, neutral, or negative memories were specifically prompted. Our results indicated that the prolonged experience of dysphoria may have greater effects on post-rumination mood and memory than the transitory experience of sadness.     

Why people rehearse their memories: Frequency of use and relations to the intensity of emotions associated with autobiographical memories

People may choose to rehearse their autobiographical memories in silence or to disclose their memories with other people. This paper focuses on five types of memory rehearsal: involuntary rehearsal, rehearsal to maintain an event memory, rehearsal to re-experience the emotion of an event, rehearsal to understand an event, or rehearsal for social communication. A total of 337 participants recalled event memories, provided estimates of how often each event was rehearsed and for what reason, and rated the affective characteristics of the events. Rehearsal frequency was highest for social communication and lowest for rehearsals aimed at understanding events. For many rehearsal types, rehearsal was more frequent for positive than negative events. Frequently rehearsed events tended to show less affective fading. The pattern changed when events were socially rehearsed. For positive events, increased social rehearsal was related to a reduction in affective fading. For negative events, increased social rehearsal was associated with increased affective fading.     

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。     

Psychopathology Symptoms,Rumination and Autobiographical Memory Specificity: Do Associations Hold After Bereavement?

Symptoms of psychopathology are associated with overgeneral memory retrieval. Overgeneral memory is hypothesized to be the result of an emotion regulatory process, dampening emotional reactions associated with retrieval of distressing specific memories. However, higher post‐loss symptom severity has been related to higher specificity of loss‐related memories recalled on the Autobiographical Memory Test. This may imply that such memories are ‘immune’ to the reduced specificity effect. We aimed to test this idea by investigating, for the first time, associations of depressive and complicated grief symptoms and depressive and grief rumination with autobiographical memory specificity on a sentence‐completion task (SCEPT) in a bereaved sample. One hundred ninety‐one adult mourners (89% women) filled out questionnaires and the SCEPT. A main finding was that higher depressive and complicated grief symptom and grief rumination levels were associated with reduced specificity of non‐loss‐related memories but not with specificity of loss‐related memories. Implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A pathway from neuroticism to depression: examining the role of emotion regulation

We examined whether the relation between neuroticism and the severity of depressive symptoms is mediated by emotion regulation. At the same time, we examined whether the type of emotion regulation strategy (maladaptive vs. adaptive) moderates the effects of neuroticism on depression severity. Community participants (N =?533; 235 women and 298 men) completed a set of questionnaires over the Internet. We used structural equation modeling to examine the mediational role of emotion regulation in linking neuroticism and the levels of depressive symptoms. The well-documented relation between neuroticism and depression is mediated by individual differences in the use of different emotion regulation strategies. More specifically, the use of maladaptive forms of emotion regulation, but not reappraisal, fully mediated the association between neuroticism and the severity of depressive symptoms.