Differentiating anxiety and depression: the State-Trait Anxiety-Depression Inventory

ABSTRACT

The differentiation of trait anxiety and depression in nonclinical and clinical populations is addressed. Following the tripartite model, it is assumed that anxiety and depression share a large portion of negative affectivity (NA), but differ with respect to bodily hyperarousal (specific to anxiety) and anhedonia (lack of positive affect; specific to depression). In contrast to the tripartite model, NA is subdivided into worry (characteristic for anxiety) and dysthymia (characteristic for depression), which leads to a four-variable model of anxiety and depression encompassing emotionality, worry, dysthymia, and anhedonia. Item-level confirmatory factor analyses and latent class cluster analysis based on a large nation-wide representative German sample (N?=?3150) substantiate the construct validity of the model. Further evidence concerning convergent and discriminant validity with respect to related constructs is obtained in two smaller nonclinical and clinical samples. Factors influencing the association between components of anxiety and depression are discussed.     

A Test of the Tripartite Model of Anxiety and Depression in Elementary and High School Boys and Girls

The applicability of the tripartite model of emotion, which distinguishes the shared aspect of depression and anxiety, negative affect (NA), from their respective specific components of low positive affect (PA) and physiological hyperarousal (PH), was examined in 472 elementary and high school students. The relations among depression, anxiety, and the three tripartite dimensions were examined for the total sample and across four subgroups based on age and gender. High school girls reported more depression, anxiety, NA, and PH than the other groups, and lower PA as assessed by the PANAS-C, but not the AFARS. Using structural equation modeling, the tripartite model proved to be a reasonably good fit for the total sample. Among the subgroups, the best fit was found for high school girls. However, several findings for the total sample and for individual subgroups were not consistent with the tripartite model, raising issues related to the independence and specificity of the tripartite constructs and their measurement. Alternative age- and gender-specific models to better account for the shared and unique aspects of depression and anxiety in children need to be explored.     

Assessment of Tripartite Factors of Emotion in Children and Adolescents II: Concurrent Validity of the Affect and Arousal Scales for Children

The authors assessed the reliability and validity of the Affect and Arousal Scale for Children (AFARS; Chorpita, Daleiden, Moffitt, Yim, & Umemoto, 2000). The AFARS is a new measure of children's positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), and physiological hyperarousal (PH). In the first study, 176 school children, 7 to 17 years of age, were administered measures of childhood worry, anxiety sensitivity, and autonomic arousal and their parents completed a child behavior problem checklist. In a second study, two groups of 100 and 114 school children, 8 to 18 years of age, were administered measures of childhood depression and anxiety, respectively, Also, 120 of these children took part in a 1-week retest administration of the AFARS. These studies provided preliminary evidence of acceptable 1-week test–retest reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity for the AFARS PA, NA, and PH scales. However, the predicted pattern of convergent and discriminant relations with parent-reported criterion only emerged for children over 11 years of age. Further, a consistent positive relation emerged between NA and PH, yet each of these scales accounted for unique variance in the prediction of criterion measures.     

探寻中国人的多重互依自我：理论、挑战与整合

为了全面理解中国人的互依自我内涵,整理相关文献后,发现主要有华人本土与跨文化两种研究取向及相关的多种典型理论,如差序格局理论、华人四元自我理论、道德自我理论、三重自我理论和文化会聚自我理论。这些理论适合解释不同类型的互依自我,并面临各自的挑战。在意义维持模型下对这些理论及互依自我类型进行了整理,发现中国人的互依自我是多层次的、动态的。     

动机性视角与认知加工视角下三重自我的层级关系

自我并非是一个单一的、整体的认知结构,至少包含3个基本的自我表征形式:个体自我、关系自我与集体自我。从动机性视角出发,3种自我的层级关系存在4种可能的假设:(1)个体自我首要性假设;(2)关系自我首要性假设;(3)集体自我首要性假设;(4)情境性假设。以往动机性视角出发的研究偏向于支持个体自我首要性假设,但其结论仍需通过进一步考察其他可能变量的作用而加以验证。从认知视角考虑三重自我的层级关系时,以往的研究结果并不统一,缺乏同时比较个体自我、关系自我、集体自我的层级关系的整合性研究。今后需要重点探索将三重自我整合起来的新的实验范式,从而有助于对三重自我层级关系的分析与探究。     

Anxiety,depression, and the suicidal spectrum: a latent class analysis of overlapping and distinctive features

ABSTRACT

Anxiety and depression diagnoses are associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviours. However, a categorical understanding of these associations limits insight into identifying dimensional mechanisms of suicide risk. This study investigated anxious and depressive features through a lens of suicide risk, independent of diagnosis. Latent class analysis of 97 depression, anxiety, and suicidality-related items among 616 psychiatric outpatients indicated a 3-class solution, specifically: (1) a higher suicide-risk class uniquely differentiated from both other classes by high reported levels of depression and anxious arousal; (2) a lower suicide-risk class that reported levels of anxiety sensitivity and generalised worry comparable to Class 1, but lower levels of depression and anxious arousal; and (3) a low to non-suicidal class that reported relatively low levels across all depression and anxiety measures. Discriminants of the higher suicide-risk class included borderline personality disorder; report of worthlessness, crying, and sadness; higher levels of anxious arousal and negative affect; and lower levels of positive affect. Depression and anxiety diagnoses were not discriminant between higher and lower suicide risk classes. This transdiagnostic and dimensional approach to understanding the suicidal spectrum contrasts with treating it as a depressive symptom, and illustrates the advantages of a tripartite model for conceptualising suicide risk.     

Aspects of identity: From the inner-outer metaphor to a tetrapartite model of the self

Abstract

We review a program of research on identity orientations – the relative importance or value that individuals place on various identity attributes when constructing their self-definitions. We first provide a brief history of the development of our measure of identity orientations – the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ) – after which we present our tetrapartite model of the self that distinguishes among individual, relational, public, and collective aspects of identity. We then review previous research on how the four identity orientations uniquely influence cognition, emotion, and behavior, and close by highlighting what we see as interesting and important directions for future research.     

Assessment of Tripartite Factors of Emotion in Children and Adolescents I: Structural Validity and Normative Data of an Affect and Arousal Scale

The authors developed and evaluated a self-report measure for children designed to assess factors of the tripartite model of emotion (Clark & Watson, 1991). Factor analytic results from a large, multi-ethnic sample (n = 1,289) supported the structural validity of the scale, with the additional suggestion that negative affect appeared to contain two lower order dimensions in the item pool. Confirmatory factor analysis in an independent sample of 300 children and adolescents suggested favorable structure. Consistent with prediction, positive and negative affect emerged as relatively orthogonal dimensions. Physiological hyperarousal was found to be positively correlated with negative affect. Normative data are presented, and tests for differences by sex, grade level, and ethnicity demonstrated nonsignificant or minimal differences between groups. The implications for the assessment of tripartite factors and their relation to psychopathology in youth are discussed.     

An Examination of the Tripartite Model of Anxiety and Depression and Its Application to Youth

The ability to differentiate anxiety and depression has been a topic of discussion in the adult and youth literatures for several decades. The tripartite model of anxiety and depression proposed by L. A. Clark and D. Watson (1991) has helped focus the discussion. In the tripartite model, anxiety is characterized by elevated levels of physiological hyperarousal (PH), depression is characterized by low levels of positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA) or generalized emotional distress is common to both. The advent of the model led to the development of measures of tripartite constructs and subsequent validity studies. The tripartite model and resultant activity concerning the model was largely devoted to adult samples. However, those interested in anxiety and depression among youth are now incorporating the tripartite model in their work. This paper examines the current influence of the tripartite model in the youth literature, especially with regard to measuring anxiety and depression.     

Depression and Anxiety: Integrating the Tripartite and Cognitive Content-Specificity Assessment Models

The cognitive content-specificity hypothesis proposes that depression and anxiety can be discriminated on the basis of unique cognitive profiles. Alternatively, the Tripartite model suggests that, although depression and anxiety share a general distress factor, anhedonia is a characteristic of depression with anxious arousal a characteristic of anxiety. Past research devoted to integrating these two models has been limited in a number of ways. To remedy these limitations, this study attempted to assess the complete Tripartite model and used a multidimensional cognitive assessment tool to handle the heterogeneity of anxious cognitive content. Results on data collected from 411 clients seeking services at a university counseling center suggested that a one-to-one mapping between Tripartite dimensions and cognitive content was possible. Further, variables from each model simultaneously explained unique variance in depression and anxiety ratings.