Neuroticism, Life Events and Negative Thoughts in the Development of Depression in Adolescent Girls
Abstract
Theories of depression suggest that cognitive and environmental factors may explain the relationship between personality and depression. This study tested such a model in early adolescence, incorporating neuroticism, stress-generation and negative automatic thoughts in the development of depressive symptoms. Participants (896 girls, mean age 12.3 years) completed measures of personality and depressive symptoms, and 12 months later completed measures of depressive symptoms, recent stressors and negative automatic thoughts. Path analysis supported a model in which neuroticism serves as a distal vulnerability for depression, conferring a risk of experiencing dependent negative events and negative automatic thoughts, which fully mediate the effect of neuroticism on later depression. A second path supported a maintenance model for depression in adolescence, with initial levels of depression predicting dependent negative events, negative automatic thoughts and subsequent depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, initial depression was also associated with later independent life events. This study establishes potential mechanisms through which personality contributes to the development of depression in adolescent girls.
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Many factors predispose to both dependent stressful life events and major depression, including neuroticism, prior depressive episodes, and genetic risk for major depression.
“Many factors predispose to both dSLEs and MD, including neuroticism, PDEs, and genetic risk for MD.16–21”
From Dependent Stressful Life Events and Prior Depressive Episodes in the Prediction of Major Depression (2010) · cites this paper as [19]
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Background
- Authors
- Kercher, A. J., Rapee, R. M., & Schniering, C. A.
- Affiliations
- Macquarie University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Kercher, Amy J.
- Venue
- Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
- Published
- 2009-05-13
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 903-915
- ISSN
- 0091-0627 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-2835
- OpenAlex
- W2056076214
- Cited by
- 130
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 8.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry
- Macquarie University
- Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology
- Australian Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
- Keywords
- neuroticism, adolescent depression, life events, negative automatic thoughts, depressive symptoms, stressors, depression vulnerability, early adolescence, girls
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Child, Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Life Change Events, Models, Psychological, Neurotic Disorders, Personality Inventory, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Thinking
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