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Looking for the negative: Depressive symptoms in adolescent girls are associated with sustained attention to a potentially critical judge during in vivo social evaluation.

ABSTRACT: Attention biases toward negative stimuli are implicated in the development and maintenance of depression. However, research is needed to understand how depression affects attention biases as they unfold in a dynamic social environment, particularly during adolescence when depression rates significantly increase due to enhanced reactivity to social stress. To examine attention biases in a live, socially evaluative environment, 26 adolescent girls from the community gave a speech in front of a potentially critical judge and a positive judge while wearing mobile eye tracking glasses. Girls' depressive symptoms were measured using the Moods and Feelings Questionnaire. Across the sample, girls looked at the positive judge more frequently and for longer periods of time compared with the potentially critical judge. In contrast, higher depressive symptoms were associated with looking at the potentially critical judge for longer periods of time. When directly comparing attention to the potentially critical judge relative to the positive judge, dysphoric girls looked at the potentially critical judge more frequently and for longer periods of time compared with the positive judge. Findings suggest that adolescent depressive symptoms are related to sustained attention toward potentially critical evaluation at the exclusion of positive evaluation. This novel approach allowed for an in vivo examination of attention biases as they unfold during social evaluation, which begins to illuminate the interpersonal significance of attention biases. If replicated and extended longitudinally, this research could be used to identify adolescents at high risk for future depression and potentially be leveraged clinically in attention bias modification treatment.

SUBMITTER: Woody ML

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7083081 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Looking for the negative: Depressive symptoms in adolescent girls are associated with sustained attention to a potentially critical judge during in vivo social evaluation.

Woody Mary L ML Rosen Dana D Allen Kristy Benoit KB Price Rebecca B RB Hutchinson Emily E Amole Marlissa C MC Silk Jennifer S JS

Journal of experimental child psychology 20181123

Attention biases toward negative stimuli are implicated in the development and maintenance of depression. However, research is needed to understand how depression affects attention biases as they unfold in a dynamic social environment, particularly during adolescence when depression rates significantly increase due to enhanced reactivity to social stress. To examine attention biases in a live, socially evaluative environment, 26 adolescent girls from the community gave a speech in front of a pot ...[more]

PMID: 30476697

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Project description:BackgroundIn sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), adolescent girls and young women are three times more likely than boys to have depressive disorders. Understanding adolescents' unique and common vulnerabilities and protective factors is essential for the development of appropriate interventions and programming focused on child and adolescent mental health. This paper examines the prevalence and predictors of depressive symptoms among high school adolescent girls in southern Uganda.MethodsBaseline data from a longitudinal cluster randomized study involving 1260 adolescent girls (14-17 years), recruited from 47 secondary schools were utilized. Depressive symptoms were estimated using the 21-item Beck's Depression Inventory. Hierarchical linear regression modelling was utilized to estimate key predictors of depressive symptoms among adolescent girls.ResultsOf the total sample, 16.35% (n = 206) reported severe depressive symptoms and almost one in every three adolescent girls interviewed (29.68%, n = 374) reported moderate symptoms. These symptoms were more prevalent among older adolescents (16 years and above). In addition, family relationships, social support, as well as measures of psychological wellbeing (self-concept and self-esteem) were all associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. Hopelessness was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms among adolescent girls.ConclusionFindings from this study indicate a high prevalence of depressive symptoms, especially among older adolescent girls. In addition, family support factors and adolescents' psychological wellbeing were associated with low levels of depressive symptoms -pointing to the need to strengthen family functioning and adolescent's psychological wellbeing to mitigate risks. Taken together, findings support increasing calls for early screening and detection of depressive symptoms to facilitate timely referral to care and treatment. Findings may also inform the development and incorporation of gender-specific mental health components in programming targeting adolescent girls, in low-resource communities in SSA.Trial registrationThis trial was prospectively registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (registration number: NCT03307226 ) on 11 October 2017.

Project description:BackgroundViolence against women has been one of the most prominent issue and a major public health concern. It is a principle violation of basic human rights and has both physical and mental effect on the victim. This study focuses on married and unmarried girls aged 15 to 19 years, belonging to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India. This study attempts to examine depression level among married and unmarried girls who have faced violence against them. With the unprecedented growth in social networking, online digital platform and its accessibility, the study also brings out the pertinent aspect of internet based violence and its psychological outcome on adolescent girls. Hence, the study can be seen as an important and needed value addition to the existing pool of knowledge on the subject.MethodsThe study uses Understanding the lives of adolescents and young adults (UDAYA) project data for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Depressive symptoms among adolescent girl is the outcome variable of the study. Descriptive statistic and bivariate analysis has been used to get to preliminary results. Chi-squared test is used to test the significant of variables. Further, multi-variate analysis (logistic regression) was used.ResultsAlmost 29, 23 and 26 percent of married adolescent girls had faced emotional, physical and sexual violence respectively. It was found that about five per cent of unmarried and eight per cent of married girls had high depressive symptoms. It was found that unmarried adolescent girls who had witnessed their father beating mother were 71 percent more likely to suffer from higher depressive symptoms [OR: 1.71, 1.09-2.69]. Adolescents who faced perpetrated bullying had 90 per cent [OR: 1.90, 1.32-2.72] and 86 per cent [OR: 1.86, 0.98-3.52] higher likelihood to suffer from higher depressive symptoms.ConclusionThe study goes beyond intimate partner violence and includes various covariates to explain the association between violence and depressive symptoms among married and unmarried adolescents. Hence, more inclusive policies are needed to address the issue of violence against women as the spectrum of the violence is expanding with time.

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Looking for the negative: Depressive symptoms in adolescent girls are associated with sustained attention to a potentially critical judge during in vivo social evaluation.

Publications

Looking for the negative: Depressive symptoms in adolescent girls are associated with sustained attention to a potentially critical judge during in vivo social evaluation.

Similar Datasets

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