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ABSTRACT: The inverse relationship between social support and depression has been robust to a wide variety of conceptual replications with college, community, and clinical samples. However, there is inadequate understanding of the mechanisms by which social support protects against depression. In this paper, we define a subtype of social support, adaptive inferential feedback, which is more precise than the general concept of social support. We elaborate two possible mechanisms for the beneficial effect of adaptive inferential feedback on depression by incorporating this type of social support into a specific etiological model of depression, the Hopelessness Theory of depression. Empirical tests are conducted for the two hypothesized mechanisms by which adaptive inferential feedback protects against depression as well as the full expanded Hopelessness Theory proposed herein. Our results supported both the specific mechanisms proposed as well as the full expanded hopelessness theory. We found that adaptive inferential feedback predicts more positive inferences for stressful events and a more positive inferential style prospectively. It also interacts with cognitive risk and stress to predict future hopelessness and depressive symptoms as well as concurrent diagnoses of hopelessness depression over and above the contributions of stress, cognitive risk, and general social support which are known predictors of depressive symptoms and disorders. Thus, this newly defined subtype of social support may be an important contributor in the etiology of hopelessness depression.
Cognitive Therapy and Research 04/2012; 30(3):307-333. · 1.33 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Do negative cognitive styles provide similar vulnerability to first onsets versus recurrences of depressive disorders, and are these associations specific to depression? The authors followed for 2.5 years prospectively college freshmen (N = 347) with no initial psychiatric disorders at high-risk (HR) versus low-risk (LR) for depression on the basis of their cognitive styles. HR participants had odds of major, minor, and hopelessness depression that were 3.5-6.8 times greater than the odds for LR individuals. Negative cognitive styles were similarly predictive of first onsets and recurrences of major depression and hopelessness depression but predicted first onsets of minor depression more strongly than recurrences. The risk groups did not differ in incidence of anxiety disorders not comorbid with depression or other disorders, but HR participants were more likely to have an onset of anxiety comorbid with depression.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology 03/2006; 115(1):145-56. · 4.86 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: It has been clearly documented that social support exerts a salubrious impact on depression. Yet, standardized social support interventions, with the primary intent of alleviating a patient's depression, have not been incorporated into evidence-based treatments for mood disorders. Not all types of support are necessarily beneficial. Inferential feedback is a subtype of social support that addresses an individual's perception of the cause, meaning, and consequences of negative life events and may be either adaptive or maladaptive. A short-term adaptive inferential feedback (AIF) training manual was developed for the partners (e.g., friends, family members) of depressed patients. The present case examines the effectiveness of a standard 14-session cognitive-behavioral treatment augmented with 4 AIF partner-training sessions. Results suggest that this newly developed social support intervention may be feasible, well liked, and possibly beneficial to depressed patients. Further research is needed to investigate any incremental value of this intervention beyond standard cognitive-behavioral treatment.
Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy 02/2006; 20(1):97-103.
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ABSTRACT: Cross-sectional and prospective research indicates that inferential feedback, a subtype of social support that addresses the cause, meaning, and consequences of negative life events, impacts depressed mood, depressogenic inferences, and depressive disorders. However, inferential feedback has not been manipulated in any prior study making it difficult to determine if it plays a causal role in depression. The current study represents the first controlled test of the role of adaptive inferential feedback in the reduction of depressive symptoms and depressogenic cognitive inferences. Individuals who received adaptive inferential feedback following a stressful life event demonstrated the greatest decreases in dysphoria and depressogenic inferences following the receipt of feedback compared to individuals who received other types of social support. Moreover, decreases in dysphoria were partially mediated by decreases in depressogenic inferences. The role of adaptive inferential feedback as a clinical tool in prevention and intervention programs is emphasized.
Cognitive Therapy and Research 07/2004; 28(4):487-509. · 1.33 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Data from a prospective longitudinal study were used to investigate whether hopelessness mediates the association between social support and depression, as hypothesized by L. Y. Abramson, G. I. Metalsky, and L. B. Alloy (1989). Measures of hopelessness, social support, and depression were administered to 103 HIV-infected men and readministered 6 months later. Findings indicated that low baseline social support predicted increases in hopelessness and depression. Increases in hopelessness predicted increases in depression after controlling for baseline social support. Low baseline social support did not predict increased depression when hopelessness was controlled statistically. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 11/2001; 69(6):1056-1060. · 4.85 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: According to the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of two major cognitive theories of depression, Beck's (1967; 1987) theory and the hopelessness theory (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989), negative cognitive styles provide vulnerability to depression, particularly hopelessness depression (HD), when people encounter negative life events. The Temple-Wisconsin Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression (CVD) Project is a two-site, prospective longitudinal study designed to test this hypothesis as well as the other etiological hypotheses of Beck's and the hopelessness theories of depression. We present findings from the CVD Project suggesting that the hypothesized depressogenic cognitive styles do indeed confer vulnerability for clinically significant depressive disorders and suicidality. In addition, we present evidence about the information processing and personality correlates of these styles. Finally, we discuss preliminary findings about the developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability to depression.
Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy 12/1998; 13(1):5-20.
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ABSTRACT: We utilized a short-term, prospective, behavioral high-risk design with a daily diary methodology for assessing daily life events and symptoms in order to examine whether attributional style and the attributional style events interaction predicted level, within-day, and across-days variability in the depressive disorder subtype, hopelessness depression, but not other depression symptoms. Nondepressed participants at high or low risk for hopelessness depression symptoms based on their attributional styles for positive and negative events provided daily reports of their positive and negative life events and ratings of their highest, lowest, and average point for the day on 20 symptoms of depression vs. mania for 28 days. In accord with the hopelessness theory, attributionally high-risk participants exhibited higher levels and greater within-day variability and also tended to show greater across-days variability of hopelessness depression symptoms, but not other depression symptoms, than attributionally low-risk participants. Across-days variability of hopelessness depression sympotoms was further predicted by the interaction of attributional style and total events (positive + negative), whereas within-day variability was a function of the main effects of attributional style and total events. Finally, as predicted, hopelessness depression symptoms intercorrelated with each other more highly than they correlated with non-hopelessness depression symptoms. The findings are discussed with respect to their implications for the proposed hopelessness subtype of depression.
Cognitive Therapy and Research 05/1997; 21(3):321-344. · 1.33 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Adaptive inferential feedback (AIF) partner training is a cognitive technique that teaches the friends and family members of depressed patients to respond to the patients’ dysfunctional thoughts in a targeted manner. These dysfunctional attributions, which AIF addresses, are a common residual feature of depression amongst remitted patients, and are associated with poor long-term consequences. Thus, an AIF partner training intervention, as a supplement to individual cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), may help to improve clinical outcomes through the continuing reinforcement of the cognitive restructuring that takes place in the context of the patient’s individual treatment. This 10-patient pilot study examines the feasibility and outcome of the augmentation of standard CBT with 4 sessions of AIF partner training. The patients’ depression, anxiety, negative inferences, and perception of social support, and their partners’ knowledge and provision of AIF significantly improved over the course of the study, with gains maintained at 2-month follow-up. Further research is needed to investigate any incremental value of this intervention beyond standard CBT. A detailed case example, illustrating the application of AIF partner training techniques, is included.
Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 14(4):350-363. · 1.33 Impact Factor
