Relation of Depressive Symptoms to Mood-Congruent Memorial Bias in Young Children: A Longitudinal Study

The current study examines whether children show evidence of adult-like depressive cognitive schemas and when such schemas emerge. Mood-congruent cognitive schemas have been strongly associated with adult depression (Ingram, 1984; Ingram et al., 1998). Findings suggest that a processing bias emerges in early childhood and adolescence (Neshat-Doost et al., 1998; Taylor & Ingram, 1999). The current study extends the current literature of mood-congruent memorial bias to 5- and 6-year old children. Controlling for prior depressive symptoms, results indicated that both biased recall and recognition are significant predictors of depressive symptoms from wave 2 to 3 but not from wave 1 to 2. Our results have narrowed the age range at which we first see evidence of biased memory and depressive symptoms.Vanderbilt UniversityDepartments of Psychology and Human DevelopmentPeabody College and College of Arts and ScienceThesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honors Program in Psychological Science