Cross-Lagged Associations Between Adolescents’ Depressive Symptoms and Negative Cognitive Style: The Role of Negative Life Events
J Youth Adolescence (2015) 44:2141–2153
DOI 10.1007/s10964-015-0308-y
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Cross-Lagged Associations Between Adolescents’ Depressive
Symptoms and Negative Cognitive Style: The Role of Negative
Life Events
Karlijn C. M. Kindt1 • Marloes Kleinjan2 • Jan M. A. M. Janssens1 •
Ron H. J. Scholte1,3
Received: 27 February 2015 / Accepted: 18 May 2015 / Published online: 3 June 2015
Ó The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Previous research has established that cognitive
theory-based depression prevention programs aiming
change in negative cognitive style in early adolescents do
not have strong effects in universal settings. Although
theories suggest that a negative cognitive style precedes
depressive symptoms, empirical findings are mixed. We
hypothesized that negative cognitive style may not predict
depressive symptoms in adolescents with normative depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms, negative cognitive style and dependent negative life events were
assessed in young adolescents (N = 1343; mean
age = 13.4 years, SD = 0.77; 52.3 % girls) at four time
points over an 18-month period. Using a cross-lagged panel
design, results revealed that depressive symptoms predicted a negative cognitive style but not vice versa. However, when including dependent negative life events as a
variable, depressive symptoms did not prospect a negative
cognitive style consistently. When dependent negative life
events were used as a time-varying covariate, depressive
symptoms and a negative cognitive style were not related.
We concluded that negative cognitive style is not predictive of depressive symptoms in a community sample of
young adolescents. Moreover, the findings suggest that
longitudinal relationships between depressive symptoms
& Karlijn C. M. Kindt
1
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University
Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
2
Trimbos Institute, P.O. Box 725, 3500 AS Utrecht,
The Netherlands
3
Praktikon, P.O. Box 6909, 6503 GK Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
and a negative cognitive style are not meaningful when
dependent negative life events are not considered.
Keywords Depression Negative cognitive style
Adolescence Negative life events Longitudinal
Introduction
Depression causes a significant burden to individuals and
brings high costs for society (Sobocki et al. 2006) and
almost 30 % of all people experience a major depressive
episode in their lives (Kessler et al. 2012). As symptoms of
depression in adolescence strongly predict depressive episodes in adulthood (Pine et al. 1999), depression rates
strongly increase in adolescence (Hankin et al. 1998), and
13 % of the 13- to 17-year olds reported to have experienced a depressive episode (Kessler et al. 2012), depression
prevention programs have been developed to decrease the
incidence of depression in youth. Most of these prevention
programs are based on cognitive theories and teach adolescents skills to change a negative cognitive style into a
more realistic, helpful cognitive style (Gillham et al. 2007;
Kindt et al. 2014; Pössel et al. 2004). Modification of a
maladaptive cognitive style should thus prevent or restrain
the increase of depressive symptoms.
Yet, even though research on cognitive theory-based
depression prevention programs for adolescents from
community samples shows encouraging results, the effects
are small and inconsistent across studies (Merry et al. 2012;
Stice et al. 2009). This could imply that these prevention
programs do not sufficiently impact or change a negative
cognitive style in young adolescents. However, another
reason for why cognitive theory-based prevention programs might not show the desired effects could be that a
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negative cognitive style does not have a major impact on
depressive symptoms, or that depressive symptoms drive
negative cognitive styles and not vice versa. Increased
knowledge about the prospective links between a negative
cognitive style and depressive symptoms in early adolescence is essential to understand why cognitive theorybased depression prevention programs only show small
effects. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the
longitudinal, bidirectional relationships between a negative
cognitive style and depressive symptoms.
Meta-analytic reviews clearly showed that a negative
cognitive style and depressive symptoms are cross-sectionally associated in children and adolescents [effect
size = .41 in Gladstone and Kaslow (1995); average
r = .35, average Z = 4.29, ps \ .0001 in Joiner and
Wagner (1995)]. After childhood, these associations become stronger when youth develop a more stable cognitive
style (Cole et al. 2008) and show strong improvements in
reasoning and abstract thinking (Steinberg 2005). Previous
longitudinal studies have tried to reveal the temporal order
of the bidirectional associations between a negative cognitive style and depressive symptoms in adolescents, but so
far, findings are mixed. While a previous study showed a
negative cognitive style to precede the increase of depressive symptoms, and not vice versa (Kindt et al. 2015),
other research showed the opposite effect, namely, that
depressive symptoms predicted a negative cognitive style
(Hankin et al. 2001; Johnson and Miller 1990; LaGrange
et al. 2011; McCarty et al. 2007; Timbremont and Braet
2006). Yet, again other research showed bidirectional effects, with depressive symptoms and a negative cognitive
style mutually influencing each other over time (Calvete
2011; Calvete et al. 2013; Stewart et al. 2004).
There may be two explanations for these contradictory
findings—other than differences in design, samples and
measurements. The relationship between a negative cognitive style and depressive symptoms could be explained
by another variable, or the relationship is spurious due to a
confounding variable and disappears after controlling for
the confounding variable. Previous longitudinal research
has revealed that time-varying factors partly account for
the variance of both depressive symptoms and a negative
cognitive style (LaGrange et al. 2011).
Negative life events could be such a time-varying variable
and might act as a confounding variable and thus alter the
link between depressive symptoms and a negative cognitive
style. Negative life events are found to be associated with
higher levels of depressive symptoms (Hammen 2005) and a
more negative cognitive style (Calvete 2011; Hankin 2008;
Hankin et al. 2001). Although cognitive theories hypothesize
that a negative cognitive style is a cause for depressive
symptoms, with negative life events acting as a moderator
(Abramson et al. 1989; Beck et al. 1979), a meta-analytic
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J Youth Adolescence (2015) 44:2141–2153
review on this topic, that included studies with two assessment waves (e.g., Abela and Payne 2003; Abela and Seligman 2000; Hankin et al. 2001; Nolen-Hoeksema et al. 1992;
Southall and Roberts 2002), showe (...truncated)
