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Published on: December 2, 2015
Teasing apart the effects of cognition, stress, and depression on health
Jenalee R Doom1, Gerald J Haeffel
1Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA.
Objective:
To test whether cognitive vulnerability could explain the link between depression and poor health.
Methods:
A 4-week longitudinal design was used to examine health problems (eg, diabetes), health behaviors (eg, smoking), depressive symptoms, cognitive vulnerability, and life stress in a sample of 154 undergraduates.
Results:
Contrary to hypotheses, depressive symptoms, but not cognitive vulnerability, were associated with health problems. However, as predicted, cognitive vulnerability was a better predictor of prospective changes in specific health behaviors than were depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, life stress was the best predictor of prospective changes in specific health behaviors.
Conclusions:
These results are among the first to show that the factors associated with health problems are different than those associated with specific health behaviors.
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