Development of gender differences in depression: An elaborated cognitive vulnerabilitytransactional stress theory

Descriptive epidemiological studies are reviewed, showing that the female preponderance in depression begins to emerge around age 13. A developmentally sensitive, elaborated cognitive vulnerability-transactional stress model of depression is proposed to explain the "big fact " of the emergence of the gender difference in depression. The elaborated causal chain posits that negative events contribute to initial elevations of general negative affect. Generic cognitive vulnerability factors then moderate the likelihood that the initial negative affect will progress to full-blown depression. Increases in depression can lead transactionally to more self-generated dependent negative life events and thus begin the causal chain again. Evidence is reviewed providing preliminary support for the model as an explanation for the development of the gender difference in depression during adolescence. Many decades of research on depression have produced several big, undisputed facts that any powerful theory of depression should be able to explain (Lewinsohn, Hoberman, Ten, & Hautzinger, 1985). We focus on two of these facts. First, the rates of depression rise dramatically during adolescence. Second, starting in early adolescence, more girls than boys begin to become depressed, an