Prospective Relations Between Inferential Styles and Depressive Symptoms Among Children of Mothers with Major...

Current models of depression risk in children include both family history and cognitive models of risk; however, these models are rarely integrated. This study aimed to address this gap by examining how cognitive vulnerabilities featured in the hopelessness theory of depression - negative inferential styles for the causes, consequences, and self-characteristic implications of negative events - may increase risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression. Specifically, we examined whether children of mothers with a history of major depressive disorder (MDD), compared to children of never-depressed mothers, exhibit more negative inferential styles and whether maternal history of MDD moderates prospective relations between children's inferential styles and depressive symptoms.

Participants were 251 children (ages 8-14 at baseline; 51% girls; 81% Non-Hispanic White) of mothers with (n = 129) or without (n = 122) a history of MDD. Children's inferential styles and depressive symptoms were assessed at baseline and then every 6 months for 2 years.

Using random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs), we found that children of mothers with a history of MDD, compared to children of never-depressed mothers, had more negative inferential styles for the causes and consequences of negative events, but not for self-characteristics, and higher depressive symptom levels, across the follow-up. In addition, there were reciprocal, transactional relations between children's inferential styles for causes and their depressive symptoms across the follow-up, with no evidence for moderation by maternal MDD.

Children's inferential styles for the causes of negative events may be a useful marker of risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression, which could be targeted to reduce risk for depression.