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Risk for Depression and Anxiety in Youth: The Interaction between Negative Affectivity, Effortful Control, and Stressors

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Abstract

Theories of temperament suggest that individual differences in affective reactivity (e.g., negative affectivity) may confer risk for internalizing psychopathology in youth and that self-regulatory aspects of temperament (e.g., effortful control) may protect against the deleterious effects of high negative affective reactivity. However, no study to date has examined how the relationship between temperament and youth internalizing psychopathology may be moderated by stress. The current study used a prospective longitudinal design to test the interaction of temperament (e.g., negative affectivity and effortful control) and stressors as a predictor of youth (ages 7–16; 56 % female; N = 576) depressive and anxious symptoms over a 3-month period. Findings show that at low levels of stress, high levels of effortful control protect against the development of depressive and anxious symptoms among youth with high levels of negative affectivity. However, at high levels of stress, this buffering effect is not observed. Gender and grade did not moderate this relationship. Overall, findings extend current understanding of how the interaction of individual psychosocial vulnerabilities and environmental factors may confer increased or decreased risk for depressive and anxious symptoms.

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Notes

  1. Our decision to not include positive affectivity was motivated by our theoretical model of how affective reactivity, regulation, and stress work together to confer risk for depression and anxiety. In our model, stressors trigger negative emotional distress among individuals who are high on temperamental negative affectivity. Positive affectivity, on the other hand, does not reflect a tendency to experience negative emotional distress in the face of stress (for a discussion, see Brown and Rosellini 2011). Therefore, although positive affectivity is a temperamental trait unique to depression, and not anxiety, we ultimately decided to omit it from the current study because it was inconsistent with the particular theoretical model we were testing.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NIMH grants R01-MH 077195 and R01-MH 077178 awarded to Benjamin L. Hankin and Jami F. Young. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Mental Health or National Institutes of Health.

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The authors report no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Denver, 2155 South Race Street, Denver, CO, 80208, USA

    Lauren D. Gulley & Benjamin L. Hankin

  2. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Jami F. Young

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  1. Lauren D. Gulley
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  2. Benjamin L. Hankin
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Correspondence to Lauren D. Gulley.

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Gulley, L.D., Hankin, B.L. & Young, J.F. Risk for Depression and Anxiety in Youth: The Interaction between Negative Affectivity, Effortful Control, and Stressors. J Abnorm Child Psychol 44, 207–218 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-9997-7

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