Cognitive Theories of Depression in Children and Adolescents: A Conceptual and Quantitative Review

This paper quantitatively reviews longitudinal studies examining three central cognitive theories of depression—Beck’s theory, Hopelessness theory, and the Response Styles theory—among children (age 8–12) and adolescents (age 13–19). We examine the effect sizes in 20 longitudinal studies, which investigated the relation between the cognitive vulnerability–stress interaction and its association with prospective elevations in depression after controlling for initial levels of depressive symptoms. The results of this review suggest that across theories there is a small relation between the vulnerability–stress interaction and elevations in depression among children (pr = 0.15) and a moderately larger effect (pr = 0.22) among adolescents. Despite these important findings, understanding their implications has been obscured by critical methodological, statistical, and theoretical limitations that bear on cognitive theories of depression. The evidence base has been limited by poor measurement of cognitive vulnerabilities and over reliance on null hypothesis significance testing; these have contributed to a field with many gaps and inconsistencies. The relative paucity of research on developmental applications of such theories reveals that surprisingly little is known about their hypothesized etiologic mechanisms in children and adolescents. Ways to advance knowledge in the area of cognitive theories of depression among youth are discussed.     

Depressive realism and the effect of intertrial interval on judgements of zero, positive, and negative contingencies

In three experiments we tested how the spacing of trials during acquisition of zero, positive, and negative response-outcome contingencies differentially affected depressed and nondepressed students' judgements. Experiment 1 found that nondepressed participants' judgements of zero contingencies increased with longer intertrial intervals (ITIs) but not simply longer procedure durations. Depressed groups' judgements were not sensitive to either manipulation, producing an effect known as depressive realism only with long ITIs. Experiments 2 and 3 tested predictions of Cheng's (1997) Power PC theory and the Rescorla-Wagner (1972) model, that the increase in context exposure experienced during the ITI might influence judgements most with negative contingencies and least with positive contingencies. Results suggested that depressed people were less sensitive to differences in contingency and contextual exposure. We propose that a context-processing difference between depressed and nondepressed people removes any objective notion of “realism” that was originally employed to explain the depressive realism effect (Alloy & Abramson, 1979).     

Attention and memory in children with brain tumors.

The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test was utilized to examine attention, learning, and memory abilities in 42 children with cerebellar (N = 18) and third ventricle tumors (N = 24). Children with cerebellar tumors exhibited significant auditory attentional impairments and displayed adequate encoding and retrieval across subsequent learning and memory trials. In contrast, children with third ventricle tumors exhibited average auditory attentional abilities, but they displayed mild encoding deficits across trials 2-5. Furthermore, the third ventricle group's compromised performance on the delayed recall trial and average performance on the delayed recognition trial is suggestive of underlying retrieval deficits.     

Counseling and Spirituality: A Historical Review

Evolution of the relationship between counseling and spirituality since 1840 is examined in terms of the number of publications that have appeared over time that include these terms. The author retrieved the data using the American Psychological Association's PsycINFO database. A similar search was done adding the term training. The rise of behaviorism and cognitive psychology is discussed as possible explanations for the absence of a discussion of spirituality in the early psychological literature. A. H. Maslow's (1969a, 1969b; Association for Transpersonal Psychology, n.d.) work; the evolution of the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling; and multiculturalism are suggested as possible influences on the growth in the number of publications on spiritual and counseling issues over the last 30 years.     

A Preliminary Study Using the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory—Adolescent Form as an Outcome Measure With Adolescent Offenders

The authors describe a preliminary study using the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory‐Adolescent Form (SASS‐A; E Miller, 1994) as an outcome measure with adolescent offenders. Results indicate that the SASSI‐A can be successfully used as a treatment planning tool as well as a measure to evaluate programs.     

The Atrocity Paradigm and the Concept of Forgiveness

In this article 1 discuss Claudia Card's treatment of war rape in relation to her discussion of the victim's moral power of forgiveness. I argue that her analysis of the victim's power to withhold forgiveness overlooks the paradoxical structure of witnessing, which implies that there is an ungraspable dimension of atrocity. In relation to this ungraspable element, the proposal that victims of atrocity have the power to either offer or withhold forgiveness may have little relevance.     

Frequency and duration of mood fluctuations: effects of dependency, self-criticism, and negative events

Few studies have examined the relation between depressive vulnerability factors and the duration of symptom disturbance, defined as the length of time during which mood states are elevated above a certain threshold. We examined the duration of mood disturbances in male (N=31) and female (N=71) college-aged individuals who completed mood checklists twice weekly for 10 weeks. Results showed that dependency and self-criticism were related to the mean severity of ratings across all checklists and the mean duration of disturbances, as well as the number of disturbances lasting at least 7 or 14 days. Some evidence for the congruency model was found. Dependency and self-criticism moderated the relation between vulnerability congruent hassles and mood. Sensitivity analyses showed that altering the threshold at which symptom scores were designated as symptom disturbances did not affect the pattern of results for dependency and self-criticism. Results have implications for the debate concerning the relation between vulnerability factors and depressive severity.