Abstract
The interpersonal theories of depression highlight the role of interpersonal stress and individual’s sensitivity to social rejection in the development of depression. However, previous research has tested their respective effects, whereas whether or not these two factors interact to affect depression, especially in ways of differential susceptibility or diathesis-stress, remains unknown. By adopting a morphed facial expressions recognition paradigm, the current study investigated the potential moderating role of perceptual sensitivity to facial expressions, especially that to angry expression which signaled social rejection, in the association between interpersonal stress and adolescent depressive symptoms. A total of 186 Chinese late adolescents (Mage = 21.16 ± 1.81 years; 73.7% females) participated in this study. The results demonstrated that perceptual sensitivity for angry faces, but not sad or happy faces, functioned as a plasticity factor significantly moderating the effect of interpersonal stress on depressive symptoms, which was consistent with hypothesis of differential susceptibility rather than diathesis-stress. No interactions were observed regarding non-interpersonal dimensions. These results were robust and survived a series of sensitivity analyses, including k-fold cross-validation test. The current findings highlight the crucial role of perceptual sensitivity to angry expression in explaining individual differences behind the links between interpersonal stress and adolescent depressive symptoms.
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To be noted, this 85% screening data criterion is strict for sadness given that sadness is more difficult to identify than anger and happiness, either prototypes of expressions or expressions with each signal strength, and no matter among computer-generated faces or photographic natural faces and natural faces in daily life (e.g., Huang et al., 2012; Montagne et al., 2007). Extant research has showed that, identification accuracy for angry and happy prototypes ranged from 85% ~ 100%, whereas sad prototype was only identified at a rate of 65% ~ 85% (e.g., Huang et al., 2012; Montagne et al., 2007). This might because sadness involves relatively subtle muscle changes in the faces (Biehl et al., 1997). Consistently, the current data revealed similar identification accuracy for these prototypes (angry: 97%; happy: 96%; sad: 85%). Accordingly, a sensitivity analysis was conducted by using a lax screening data criterion of 65% identification accuracy for sadness (16.7% data for sadness was excluded). The results showed that the main effect of perceptual sensitivity to sadness and its interaction effects with interpersonal and non-interpersonal stress remained non-significant (p ≥ 0.017, the threshold of multiple corrected p-value was 0.0083).
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The authors acknowledge and thank all the adolescents that participated in the current study, as well as research assistants who helped with data collection.
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This study was supported by Social Science Planning Fund of Shandong Province (18DJYJ01).
Data Sharing and DeclarationThe datasets analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Y.X. participated in data analysis and interpretation of the data and drafted the paper; C.C. conceived of the study, participated in its design and helped to draft the paper. All authors read and approved the final paper.
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Xu, Y., Cao, C. Interpersonal Stress and Late Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: Moderation by Perceptual Sensitivity to Facial Expression of Anger. J. Youth Adolescence 52, 2592–2605 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-023-01849-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-023-01849-9