2,520 research outputs found
Cognitive Bias Modification for Depression
No full textChapter titled, "Cognitive Bias Modification for Depression" written by Christopher G. Beevers, Mary E. McNamara, Mackenzie Zisser, and Rachel L. Weisenburger for a forthcoming book, APA Handbook of Depression, edited by Jeremy Pettit and Thomas Olino
Pre-print for "Change in Negative Attention Bias Mediates the Association BetweenAttention Bias Modification Training and Depression Symptom Improvement"
No full textPre-print for manuscript titled "Change in Negative Attention Bias Mediates the Association Between Attention Bias Modification Training and Depression Symptom Improvement" by Christopher G. Beevers, Kean J. Hsu, David M. Schnyer, Jasper A.J. Smits, & Jason Shumake to appear in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psycholog
Analysis code for manuscript and supplemental materials
No full textAnalysis code used in manuscript: Self-referent encoding and depression symptoms: An intensive sampling approach by Rachel L. Weisenburger, Justin Dainer-Best, Mackenzie Zisser, Mary E. McNamara, Christopher G. Beever
Using network analysis to identify central symptoms of adolescent depression
No full textObjective: Experiencing depression symptoms, even at mild to moderate levels, is associated with maladaptive outcomes for adolescents. We used network analysis to evaluate which symptoms (and associations between symptoms) are most central to adolescent depression.
Method: Participants were part of a large, diverse community sample (N = 1,409) of adolescents between the ages of 13-19 years old. Network analysis was used to identify the most central symptoms (nodes) and associations between symptoms (edges) assessed by the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI). We also evaluated these centrality indicators for network robustness using stability and accuracy tests, associated symptom centrality with mean levels of symptoms, and examined potential differences between the structure and connectivity of depression networks in boys and girls.
Results: The most central symptoms in the network were self-hatred, loneliness, sadness, and pessimism. The strongest associations between symptoms were sadness-crying, anhedonia-school dislike, sadness-loneliness, school work difficulty-school performance decrement, self-hatred-negative body image, sleep disturbance-fatigue, and self-deprecation-self-blame. The network was robust to stability and accuracy tests. Notably, symptom centrality and mean levels of symptoms were not associated. Boys and girls’ networks did not differ in levels of connectivity, though the link between body image and self-hatred was stronger in girls than boys.
Conclusions: Self-hatred, loneliness, sadness, and pessimism were the most central symptoms in adolescent depression networks, suggesting these symptoms (and associations between symptoms) should be prioritized in theoretical models of adolescent depression and could also serve as important treatment targets for adolescent depression interventions
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Dysfunctional Attitude Scale - Short Forms 1 & 2
No full textShort form of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (versions 1 and 2) that were created as part of this publication: Beevers, C. G., Strong, D. R., Meyer, B., Pilkonis, P. A., & Miller, I. R. (2007). Efficiently assessing negative cognition in depression: An item response theory analysis of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale. Psychological Assessment, 19(2), 199–209. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.19.2.199Psycholog
Specificity and overlap of attention and memory biases in depression
No full textAttentional and memory biases are viewed as crucial cognitive processes underlying symptoms of depression. However, it is still unclear whether these two biases are uniquely related to depression or whether they show substantial overlap. We investigated the degree of specificity and overlap of attentional and memory biases for depressotypic stimuli in relation to depression and anxiety by means of meta-analytic commonality analysis. By including four published studies, we considered a pool of 463 healthy and subclinically depressed individuals, different experimental paradigms, and different psychological measures. Memory bias is reliably and strongly related to depression and, specifically, to symptoms of negative mood, worthlessness, feelings of failure, and pessimism. Memory bias for negative information was minimally related to anxiety. Moreover, neither attentional bias nor the overlap between attentional and memory biases were significantly related to depression. Limitations include cross-sectional nature of the study. Our study showed that, across different paradigms and psychological measures, memory bias (and not attentional bias) represents a primary mechanism in depression
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Serotonin transporter gene variation and its association with cognitive vulnerability to depression
No full texttextDepression is a serious condition that affects a significant proportion of the population and causes substantial life impairment (Kessler et al., 2003). Cognitive models of depression vulnerability (e.g., Teasdale, 1988) posit that information processing biases for negative and positive stimuli play a critical role in the disorder. Change in negative thinking in response to dysphoric moods is referred to as cognitive reactivity and has been shown to be a risk factor for future increases in depression (e.g., Beevers & Carver, 2003; Segal et al., 2006). Interestingly, recent behavioral genetics research indicates that certain genes may influence cognitive factors associated with depression. The short allele of a polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) has been associated with increased risk for depression in the context of life stress (Caspi et al., 2003); however, the psychological mechanisms that increase depression risk for short 5-HTTLPR allele-carriers have not been definitively identified. Recent work has begun to reveal an association between the 5-HTTLPR and cognitive factors associated with depression such as attention bias for emotional information (Beevers et al., 2007) and negative thinking style (Hayden et al., 2007). A pilot study (n = 156) revealed an association between 5-HTTLPR and cognitive reactivity for attention bias for happy faces. The current study (n = 180) extended and improved upon the pilot study’s methodology and examined the relationship between the 5-HTTLPR and cognitive reactivity for attention to sad and happy faces as well as cognitive reactivity for dysfunctional attitudes. Cognitive variables were assessed after a neutral mood induction and after a sad mood induction at two laboratory sessions separated by at least 24 hours. There was a significant association between the 5-HTTLPR and cognitive reactivity for attention bias for emotional faces among Caucasian participants. Specifically, the short allele was associated with increased bias for emotional faces after the sad mood induction compared to the neutral mood induction. There was a linear relationship between number of short alleles possessed by participants and increase in bias for emotional information. The 5-HTTLPR was not significantly associated with cognitive reactivity for dysfunctional attitudes, but the effect was in the expected direction. Results are discussed in the context of recent neuroimaging research and plasticity models of behavior genetics. Implications for a model of depression vulnerability integrating genetic, neural, and cognitive factors and future directions for similar behavioral genetics studies are discussed.Psycholog
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Elaborative processing biases associated with vulnerability and maintenance of depression : evidence across levels of analysis
No full texttextMajor depressive disorder (MDD) will soon represent the most costly and debilitating disorder in the world. Yet, a clear model of the mechanisms underlying MDD remains elusive. This lack of clarity obscures efforts to prevent and treat MDD more effectively. This dissertation seeks to advance an integrated model of the mechanisms underlying MDD across cognitive, neural, and genetic levels of analysis. Building on the empirical foundation of cognitive theories of MDD, the dissertation includes three studies that help address questions about the cognitive mechanisms underlying depression vulnerability and maintenance. Specifically, the three studies focus on identifying 1) how elaborative processing biases, including attentional biases and rumination, give rise to specific symptoms of MDD and 2) elucidating biological mechanisms that may give rise to these biases. Together, these studies help advance an integrated model of MDD that, ultimately, may help facilitate the prevention and treatment of this costly and debilitating disorder.Psycholog
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The colors of depression : is it more than just being blue? : an exploration of emotional reactivity in depression
No full textTwo studies are presented which expand on previous research on the Emotion Context Insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis evident in Major Depressive Disorder. Specifically, these studies address limitations of this research by examining the emotional reactivity of depressed individuals when they are exposed to emotionally evocative stimuli requiring active participation in personally relevant tasks. Depressed and nondepressed college students were exposed to two stressful, aversive tasks in Study 1, and were given either highly positive or negative feedback on a performance-based test in Study 2. Results of the two studies were somewhat inconsistent. Study 1 demonstrated that depressed individuals experienced a potentiation of negative emotion (i.e. anger), while in Study 2, ECI was supported. Reasons for the discrepancy are discussed; however, taken together, they point to the importance of emotion dysregulation as a maintenance factor for the disorder.Psycholog
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Evaluation of a free-viewing task to measure distinct negative and positive biases in depression
No full textAttentional bias has traditionally been inferred through the measurement of reaction-time-based tasks. Eye-tracking offers a way to measure attention bias directly, and free-viewing tasks with intricate stimuli presentations may capture the complexities and dynamics of attention bias in ways previous modalities have not. The present study developed a free-viewing task using a data-driven stimuli selection process. Two free-viewing tasks were created using sad and neutral stimuli, and happy and neutral stimuli to tease apart the distinct effects of negative and positive bias. In this study, eye tracking data was collected and analyzed from n = 130 participants using mixed-effect and generalized linear models. Results revealed the interaction term (depression severity and stimuli valence) influenced dwell time on emotional stimuli, such that with an increase of 1 SD in depression severity (7.87 points on the Beck Depression Inventory-II), participants spent less 60 ms less time viewing sad stimuli and 25 ms less viewing happy stimuli. A significant interaction of depression severity and valence also influenced participant’s latency to first fixation. Increased depression severity (1 SD) was associated with increased odds of being slower to fixate on stimuli when it was sad (OR = 1.10) and when it was happy (OR = 1.03). There was no effect of depression severity or stimuli valence on latency to first fixation, nor an effect of depression severity on the proportion of trials where the first fixation was emotional or proportion of trials where dwell time for emotional areas of interest (AOIs) exceeded neutral. Internal consistency for emotional dwell time was high for both tasks (omega = .95 and .94 for the sad and happy versions, respectively), and split-half reliability for the outcomes was overall strong. Findings suggest depressed individuals may interact with stimuli differently at various levels of depression severity. Implications for future research are discussed.Psycholog
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