Because of both methodological and theoretical limitations, previous studies of offspring of parents with affective disorders have rarely tested psychosocial models of depressive vulnerability. The current research is part of a longitudinal investigation of psychosocial risk for disorder in 8-to 16-yearold children of unipolar, bipolar, medically ill, and normal mothers. High rates of psychopathology, including depression, were found in children in the high-risk groups. The current study evaluated the separate contributions of maternal depressive history, current self-reported depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory scores), and chronic strains to observe relations between these ordinarily confounded variables and children's psychiatric diagnoses and current functioning. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that chronic strain added significantly to the prediction of several outcomes and that current depressive symptoms were more predictive of children's scores than was maternal history of affective disorder. Both chronic strains and current Beck Depression Inventory scores are viewed as concomitants of affective disorder but are not specific to it. Therefore studies of the risk to children conferred by parental disorder cannot assume that diagnostic status as such is a single risk factor and must attend to the effects of ongoing stressors and nonspecific symptoms.One path in the search for origins of and preventive interventions for depression leads to the study of vulnerabilities that children at high risk acquire during childhood. Although evidence is mounting that children of parents with affective disorders are at risk for increased psychopathology, especially depression (e.g., reviews by Beardslee, Bemporad, Keller, & Klerman, 1983;Morrison, 1983;Orvaschel, Weissman, & Kidd, 1980), the magnitude and mechanisms of such risk remain unclear. In particular, few studies of the associations between parental diagnostic status and child outcome have examined two variables that may be associated with parental diagnosis but may also exist independent of parental psychiatric status: ongoing family stress and parental depressive symptoms. Although these variables overlap with parental psychiatric conditions, they may contribute separately or differentially to children's outcomes.Family stresses, including chronic strains, negative life This research was funded in part by a Veterans Administration research grant to

Cognitive, developmental, and psychodynamic theories all hypothesize that negative self-concepts acquired in childhood may induce vulnerability to depression. Children at risk because of maternal major affective disorder, compared with children of medically ill and normal mothers, were examined for evidence of negative cognitions about themselves, and were found to have more negative self-concept, less positive self-schemas, and more negative attributional style. It was further predicted that negative cognitions about the self would be related to maternal depression and chronic stress, and to the quality of perceived and actual interactions with the mother. In general, the predicted associations were obtained, supporting speculations about how maternal affective disorder is associated with stress and with relatively negative and unsupportive relationships with children that in turn diminish children's self-regard.

The present study examined age-related patterns in communicative abilities relevant to providing testimony, specifically, knowledge of legal terms commonly used with children in court. Subjects were 60 public school students comprising 3 groups of 20 each in kindergarten, third, and sixth grades. Grade-related patterns emerged in children's knowledge of legal terms and in their misunderstanding of terms. Results suggest that age-appropriate word choice in the examination of child witnesses may be an important factor in eliciting accurate testimony. Potential mediators of the relation between age and accurate knowledge of legal terminology (i.e., verbal skills, television viewing of court-related programs, direct experience with the legal system) also were explored. Implications for future research, court preparation, and training of legal professionals in age-appropriate examination of children are discussed.

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Subjects participated in two experimental sessions designed to study laboratory-induced amnesia, one using a standard hypnosis paradigm and one using a non-hypnotic directed-forgetting paradigm. Two independent sources of variation were derived from the hypnotic amnesia data: retrieval inhibition and inhibition release. In the nonhypnotic directed-forgetting procedure, some items were cued to be forgotten shortly after presentation and some were cued to be remembered. At test, the subjects were asked to recall both the to-be-remembered and the to-be-forgotten items. Over 39% of the variance in the recall of the to-be-forgotten items could be accounted for by the inhibition and release constructs obtained with hypnosis. These relations between the two procedures were not mediated by verbal ability or cognitive style (field independence). We concluded that the mechanisms of forgetting involved in laboratory demonstrations of hypnotic and nonhypnotic amnesia are related, and the implication is that some of them are the same, namely, retrieval inhibition and inhibition release. We also argued that the possible demand characteristics that accompany the hypnosis procedure are not apparent with the nonhypnotic procedure. Therefore, the relationships observed in the present results were taken as evidence that hypnotically induced amnesia is not entirely the result of subjects' reactions to demand characteristics.