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Updated: Jun 13, 2025
08:42
Design and Implementation of an fMRI Study Examining Thought Suppression in Young Women with, and At-risk, for Depression
Published on: May 19, 2015
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Negative self-referent cognition predicts future depression symptom change: an intensive sampling approach.
Rachel L Weisenburger1, Justin Dainer-Best2, Mackenzie Zisser1
1Department of Psychology and Institute for Mental Health Research, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
Cognition & Emotion
|September 12, 2024
Summary
Negative self-referent thinking predicts increased depression symptoms. This study found that changes in negative self-referent processing, but not changes in depression, causally linked to future depression.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Cognitive theories suggest negative self-referent cognition contributes to depression.
- Few studies have used intensive longitudinal data to explore temporal links between self-referent processing and depression.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal association between negative self-referent processing and depression symptoms.
- To determine if changes in self-referent cognition precede increases in depression.
Main Methods:
- Three samples of undergraduate students completed daily or weekly assessments.
- Random intercept cross-lagged panel models analyzed temporal associations between self-referent processing and depression.
Main Results:
- Significant cross-lagged effects were found in two of three samples, indicating negative self-referent thinking predicted subsequent depression.
- Changes in depression did not predict subsequent increases in negative self-referent processing.
Conclusions:
- Negative self-referent processing may causally influence future depression symptom increases.
- Findings support cognitive theories of depression, highlighting the role of self-referent thought patterns.
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