Although the majority of HIV-positive individuals appear to be psychologically resilient, this meta-analysis provides strong evidence that HIV infection is associated with a greater risk for major depressive disorder. Future research should focus on identifying pathways of risk and resilience for depression within this population.

In practice, the inclusion of correlated residuals in latent-variable models is often regarded as a statistical sleight of hand, if not an outright form of cheating. Consequently, researchers have tended to allow only as many correlated residuals in their models as are needed to obtain a good fit to the data. The current article demonstrates that this strategy leads to the underinclusion of residual correlations that are completely justified on the basis of measurement theory and research design. In many designs, the absence of such correlations will not substantially harm the fit of the model; however, failure to include them can change the meaning of the extracted latent variables and generate potentially misleading results. Recommendations include (a) returning to the full multitrait-multimethod design when measurement theory implies the existence of shared method variance and (b) abandoning the evil-but-necessary attitude toward correlated residuals when they reflect intended features of the research design.

This study evaluated the efficacy of 2 programs for preventing depressive symptoms in adolescents. Participants were 380 high school students randomly assigned to a cognitive-behavioral program (CB), an interpersonal psychotherapy-adolescent skills training program (IPT-AST), or a no-intervention control. The interventions involved eight 90-min weekly sessions run in small groups during wellness classes. At postintervention, students in both the CB and IPT-AST groups reported significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms than did those in the no-intervention group, controlling for baseline depression scores; the 2 intervention groups did not differ significantly from each other. The effect sizes, using Cohen's d, for the CB intervention and the IPT-AST intervention were 0.37 and 0.26, respectively. Differences between control and intervention groups were largest for adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms at baseline. For a high-risk subgroup, defined as having scored in the top 25th percentile on the baseline depression measure, the effect sizes for the CB and the IPT-AST interventions were 0.89 and 0.84, respectively. For the whole sample, sociotropy and achievement orientation moderated the effect of the interventions. Intervention effects were short term and were not maintained at 6-month follow-up.

Response styles theory posits that rumination represents a trait vulnerability to depression. Recent evidence has suggested that rumination predicts changes in depression more strongly among individuals with high levels of negative cognition. Three studies evaluated this model of interactive vulnerabilities. Study 1 provided empirical support for the distinction between rumination and negative cognitive content. The next 2 studies investigated the interactive model in the laboratory. Study 2 randomly assigned participants to either ruminate or distract following a sad mood induction. This study found that rumination was more strongly associated with dysphoria among individuals who report high levels of negative cognition. Similarly, Study 3 found that rumination and negative cognition interact to predict changes in dysphoria across a no-task delay period following a sad mood induction. These studies provide support for an interactive model in which rumination amplifies the deleterious effects of negative cognition.

The development of depressive attributional style (AS) and its role as a cognitive diathesis for depression were examined in children and adolescents (Grades 2-9). In a 4-wave longitudinal study of 3 overlapping age cohorts, AS, negative life events, and depressive symptoms were evaluated every 12 months. Consistency of children's attributions across situations was moderately high at all ages. The cross-sectional structure of AS changed with age, as stability became a more salient aspect of AS than internality and globality. The structure of AS also changed, becoming more traitlike as children grew older. In longitudinal analyses, evidence of a Cognitive Diathesis x Stress interaction did not emerge until Grades 8 and 9, suggesting that AS may not serve as a diathesis for depression at younger ages. Results suggest that attributional models of depression may require modification before they are applied across developmental levels.