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Dampening, Positive Rumination, and Positive Life Events: Associations with Depressive Symptoms in Children at Risk for Depression

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Abstract

Blunted positive affect is characteristic of depression. Altered positive affect regulation may contribute to this blunting, and two regulation strategies, dampening positive affect and positive rumination, have been implicated in depression. However, the conditions under which these strategies impart risk/protective effects prior to onset of depression are unknown. The current study examined 81 healthy children (age 7–10) at low and high risk for depression on the basis of maternal history of depression and tested how dampening and positive rumination interacted with the experience of recent positive life events to predict depressive symptoms. Children at high and low risk did not differ in their use of dampening or positive rumination. However, elevated use of dampening in the context of many positive life events predicted current depressive symptoms, and specifically anhedonic symptoms, in children at low-risk for depression. These findings held when controlling for negative rumination and negative life events. Positive rumination did not interact with positive life events but was associated with higher depressive symptoms in high-risk children. Results indicate that prior to the onset of depression, positive life events may impart risk when dampening positive affect is utilized in this context, while positive rumination may increase risk for depressive symptoms.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Sidney R. Baer Jr. Foundation; Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health (MH097335, MH100019-03).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Washington University in St. Louis, 4444 Forest Park Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA

    Kirsten Gilbert, Joan Luby & Deanna Barch

  2. Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Katherine Luking

  3. Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    David Pagliaccio

  4. Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Deanna Barch

  5. Department of Radiology, Washington University in St. Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

    Deanna Barch

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  1. Kirsten Gilbert
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  2. Katherine Luking
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  4. Joan Luby
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  5. Deanna Barch
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Correspondence to Kirsten Gilbert.

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Conflict of Interest

Kirsten Gilbert, Katherine Luking, David Paggliaccio, Joan Luby, Deanna Barch declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights Statement

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained form all individual participants included in the study.

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Gilbert, K., Luking, K., Pagliaccio, D. et al. Dampening, Positive Rumination, and Positive Life Events: Associations with Depressive Symptoms in Children at Risk for Depression. Cogn Ther Res 41, 31–42 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-016-9798-5

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