Targeted Rejection Predicts Hastened Onset of Major Depression

Abstract

Although severe life stress frequently precipitates the onset of major depression, little is known about the basic nature of stressors in this general category of adversity and how exposure to different life events might be related to clinical aspects of the disorder. We addressed this issue by introducing, and examining the effects of, targeted rejection (TR), which involves the exclusive, active, and intentional social rejection of an individual by others. Twenty-seven adults with major depressive disorder were administered an interview-based measure of life stress. Severe life events that occurred prior to the onset of depression were subsequently coded as TR or as non-TR. Participants who experienced a pre-onset severe TR event became depressed approximately three times faster than did their non-TR counterparts. These findings highlight the potential importance of TR as a marker of hastened depression onset and demonstrate how refining characterizations of stress may advance our understanding of depression.

Neural sensitivity to social rejection is associated with inflammatory responses to social stress

“…Specifically, they may help to explain the considerable variability that has been observed in susceptibility to disorders with an inflammatory component, including asthma (4), arthritis (5), cardiovascular disease (6), certain types of cancer (7), and depression (8). Risk for depression, for example, increases substantially following rejectionrelated life events (42,43), but not all people who experience rejection become depressed. Greater neural responses to rejection may be associated with greater inflammatory activity, which is subsequently reflected in the pathogenesis of inflammatory-related disorders such as depression (44).…”

An fMRI Investigation of Attributing Negative Social Treatment to Racial Discrimination

“…These findings also highlight the distress associated with negative social treatment in general and suggest that Black individuals, who may face negative social treatment more frequently, may unfortunately experience this distress more often. Given that experiences of negative social treatment have been linked to increased physiological stress responding (Eisenberger, Taylor, et al, 2007;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004) and negative mental health outcomes (Slavich, Thornton, Torres, Monroe, & Gotlib, 2009), it is likely that repeated experiences with these negative events take a cumulative toll.…”

The Interpersonal Toxicity of Excessive Reassurance-Seeking: Evidence From a Longitudinal Study of Romantic Relationships

“…Life events involving targeted interpersonal rejection (e.g., partner-initiated romantic relationship break-up) increase risk for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) by 21.6-fold, more than twice the risk associated with the death of a loved one (Kendler, Hettema, Butera, Gardner, & Prescott, 2003). Furthermore, patients reporting rejection events develop new onsets of MDD three times faster than patients who experienced other types of interpersonal stress (e.g., arguments with close others) or life events in noninterpersonal domains (e.g., job loss due to budget cuts; Slavich, Thornton, Torres, Monroe, & Gotlib, 2009). Interpersonal rejection events include elements of social-evaluative threat and social demotion and are thus hypothesized to elicit negative self-referential thinking while dismantling an individual's adaptive social bonds (Slavich, O'Donovan, Espel, & Kemeny, 2010).…”