A STRESS GENERATION MODEL OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEPRESSION IN GIRLS DURING THE TRANSITION TO ADOLESCENCE: ELUCIDATING THE ROLE OF INTERPERSONAL DYSFUNCTION

The goal of the present study was to examine the extent to which deficits in emotional, social-cognitive, and behavioral functioning might precipitate heightened levels of depression symptoms in a community sample of girls followed through the transition to adolescence (ages 11 to 15 years) while also considering the peer, family, and developmental contexts that might attenuate or enhance this pathway. Partial support was found for study hypotheses. First, associations between age 11 negative emotionality, social-cognitive biases, and negative social behaviors, were generally low and below hypothesized ‘moderate’ levels. Associations within the component measures of these interpersonal domains ranged from low to high and suggested some coherence among the study measures comprising each domain. Second, as expected, age 11 measures of interpersonal functioning predicted elevations in depression symptoms age 15 when each domain was examined separately. Only measures of negative emotionality, however, contributed unique variance in models incorporating all three domains simultaneously. Third, the majority of the main effects of interpersonal deficits were moderated by friendship quality and parent-child interaction; however, the risk-protective processes of having a high quality friendship and positive mother-child relationship were counter to anticipations, leading to worse, rather than better, emotional adjustment, in comparison to other girls. Importantly, parent and peer relationships were not interchangeable, as demonstrated by the little protection high friendship quality offered girls whose interactions with their mothers were low in positive features and also demonstrated poor self-control. On the other hand, high quality mother-child interactions protected against emotional difficulties associated with interpersonal deficits in girls with low friendship quality. Together, these findings highlight the continuing salience of the parent-child relationship in adolescent girls’ emotional adjustment, and the need to delineate the dynamic interplay of the peer and parenting contexts as they together shape the development of adolescent girls. Findings suggest that the onset of pubertal development interacts with social contextual factors to accentuate processes linking negative emotionality, but not social-cognitive biases or negative social behaviors, and depression symptoms. Future research should examine other indicators of the adolescent transition as they might accentuate pathways to depression