An Interactive Model for the Emergence of Gender Differences in Depression in Adolescence

A 5-year longitudinal study investigated the interrelationships among children's experiences of depressive symptoms, negative life events, explanatory style, and helplessness behaviors in social and achievement situations. The results revealed that early in childhood, negative events, but not explanatory style, predicted depressive symptoms; later in childhood, a pessimistic explanatory style emerged as a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, alone and in conjunction with negative events. When children suffered periods of depression, their explanatory styles not only deteriorated but remained pessimistic even after their depression subsided, presumably putting them at risk for future episodes of depression. Some children seem repeatedly prone to depressive symptoms over periods of at least 2 years. Depressed children consistently showed helpless behaviors in social and achievement settings.

The effects of different types of responses to a depressed mood on the duration and severity of the mood were examined. On the basis of Nolen-Hoeksema's (1987) response styles theory of depression, it was hypothesized that distracting, active responses would be more effective in alleviating a depressed mood than would ruminative, passive responses. A depressed mood was induced in 35 male and 34 female Ss, and subjects were randomly assigned to engage in 1 of 4 types of responses: an active task that distracted them from their mood; a passive, distracting task; an active task designed to lead to ruminations about their mood; or a passive, ruminative task. As predicted, the greatest remediation of depressed mood was found in Ss in the distracting-active response condition, followed in order by the distracting-passive, ruminative-active, and ruminative-passive response conditions. Degree of rumination had a greater impact on remediation of depressive affect than level of activity, with greater rumination leading to lesser remediation of depressive affect. In addition, the effects of the response tasks were limited to depressed mood. The implications of these results for interventions with depressed persons are discussed.