Five-year prospective neuroticism–stress effects on major depressive episodes: Primarily additive effects of the general neuroticism factor and stress.
- 1 August 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Journal of Abnormal Psychology
- Vol. 129 (6), 646-657
- https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000530
Abstract
The past decades of research on predictors of depression have frequently emphasized interactive diathesis-stress questions: What kinds of vulnerabilities under stressful circumstances increase risk of developing depression? This study addresses 3 theoretically important gaps in our knowledge regarding diathesis-stress models of depression: the role of temperament (neuroticism), interactive versus additive effects of neuroticism-stress relationships, and effects of stressor characteristics (acute vs. chronic, major vs. minor events, interpersonal vs. noninterpersonal content). We addressed these gaps in the prediction of major depressive episodes (MDEs) in a sample of high schoolers (n = 559) oversampled for high neuroticism and assessed for presence of MDEs annually for 5 years. Survival analyses provided relatively consistent support for the main effects of the broad vulnerability factor of the general neuroticism factor, acute stressors, and chronic stressors in the prediction of MDEs. In contrast, the majority of our analyses failed to support interactive neuroticism-stress accounts of MDE risk. Integrating our results with the extant literature reinforces the notion that both the general neuroticism factor and stress prospectively predict depressive disorders and highlight that their main effects are significantly larger than their interaction.Keywords
Funding Information
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01- MH065652, F32-MH091955)
This publication has 56 references indexed in Scilit:
- Refining the Candidate EnvironmentClinical Psychological Science, 2013
- Perseverative thought: A robust predictor of response to emotional challenge in generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorderBehaviour Research and Therapy, 2011
- Are anxiety and depression just as stable as personality during late adolescence? Results from a three-year longitudinal latent variable study.Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2011
- The Northwestern-UCLA youth emotion project: Associations of cognitive vulnerabilities, neuroticism and gender with past diagnoses of emotional disorders in adolescentsBehaviour Research and Therapy, 2010
- Public health significance of neuroticism.American Psychologist, 2009
- Cognitive Personality Characteristics Impact the Course of Depression: A Prospective Test of Sociotropy, Autonomy and Domain-Specific Life EventsCognitive Therapy and Research, 2008
- Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought.Psychological Bulletin, 2008
- Major life events and major chronic difficulties are differentially associated with history of major depressive episodes.Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2007
- Development of gender differences in depression: An elaborated cognitive vulnerability-transactional stress theory.Psychological Bulletin, 2001
- The Temple-Wisconsin Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression Project: Lifetime history of Axis I psychopathology in individuals at high and low cognitive risk for depression.Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2000