In this 3-year longitudinal study, the depressed affect of early adolescent boys and girls was studied with the purpose of distinguishing among those adolescents with chronic, as compared to episodic, depressed affect and those without elevated levels of depressed mood during that developmental stage. Variable-centered analyses indicated a general pattern of stability in depressed affect across early adolescence both for boys and for girls. Person-centered analyses, however, revealed five separate patterns of depressed affect across early adolescence. The depressed affect categories showed patterns of stability for most early adolescents, patterns of change for fewer early adolescents, and gender differences only in the smaller subgroups of early adolescents who showed patterns of change in depressed affect. Case-level analyses focused on adolescents with elevated depressed affect to distinguish ways in which the daily lives of adolescents with episodic depressed affect differed from the daily lives of adolescents with chronically depressed affect.

Drawing from a larger longitudinal investigation, the links between young adolescents' everyday experiences and parental depressed mood were examined in 201 primarilyCaucasian family groups. The current study used data collected when the adolescents were in seventh and eighth grade. Families in which at least one parent reported recurrent depressed mood (n = 36) were compared with a contrast group of families (n = 165). Adolescents in the recurrent parent depression group reported higher levels of depressed mood and greater family conflict. Experience Sampling Method data revealed that boys in the recurrent parent depression group spent more time with their families compared with girls in that group. Adolescents with depressed parents, especially girls, reported less positive mood when with their families. Analyses identified characteristics that distinguished between adolescents with depressed parents who themselves were experiencing elevated depressed mood and adolescents who did not show elevated depressed mood.

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