Depression and cognitive characteristics of stressful life-event types.

Abstract

Stressful life events as well as individual appraisals have been hypothesized as important antecedents of depression. However, the examination of characteristics of life events has been a relatively neglected topic. The present study investigated depression and life-event characteristics by applying an event classification scheme proposed by Fairbank and Hough (1979). Cognitive appraisal properties of event types were also examined to shed light on event qualities. Four hundred undergraduates completed the Beck Depression Inventory, a Life Events Inventory, and an Attribution Questionnaire. The results indicated that the event classification scheme was successful in separating types of events by their degree of association with depression. Also, event, types were associated with shared cognitive appraisals. Thus, event types differed in depression associated with them as well as in cognitions associated with them. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed, with a particular focus on the implications for current psychological theories of depression.

Association of Types of Life Events with Depressive Symptoms among Puerto Rican Youth

“…Research among adolescents and adults shows a significant association between stressful life events and depression or depressive symptoms [35, 36]. However, many depressed youth do not experience a stressful life event prior to their depression and not all youth who experience stressful or adverse life events become depressed.…”

A prospective and retrospective study of attributional style, perceptions of control, social support, and the life events-illness relationship

“…Some researchers have found that negative, uncontrollable perceived events had stronger ad verse effects on psychological health than negative, controllable ones (Husaini & Neff, 1980;McFarlane, Norman, Streiner, Roy, & Scott, 1980), whereas others have not (Fontana, Hughes, Marcus, & Dowds, 1979;Sandler & Lakey, 1982). Whereas individuals who tended to per ceive events as being due to chance (i.e., uncontrollable) showed more depressive symptoms in one study , Type C events (that were seen as uncontrollable) were least associated with depres sion in another (Hammen & Mayol, 1982). In general, however, it ap pears that uncontrollable events tend to correlate higher with the amount of illness than controllable ones do (Stern, McCants, & Pettine, 1982;Suis & Mullen, 1981).…”

“…This confounding of aspects of events and attributional style could have produced the results. Others have noted that some events do tend to have commonly shared appraisals (Hammen & Mayol, 1982).…”

“…Some studies requested that subjects fill out a questionnaire (Gong-Guy & Hammen, 1980) in which they rated five of their most stressful life events on each of the attributlonal dimensions using a seven-point scale (Gong-Guy & Hammen, 1980; 35 Hammen, Krantz, & Cochran, 1981;Hammen & Mayol, 1982).…”

“…However, Persons and Rao (1985) found no signifi cant relationship between life events and depression as measured by the BDI. Hammen and Mayol (1982) took a different approach in their investiga tion of the relationship between life events and depression. Generally, the notion is that depressed subjects may perceive events as less under their control, and may take more responsibility for negative events, and less responsibility for positive ones.…”