Pleasant events, unpleasant events, and depression

A review of previous research on Lewinsohn's model of depression shows that the causal link between a lack of response-contingent positive reinforcement and subsequent depression remains unsubstantiated. The present study was designed to explicitly test this causal relationship through the use of cross-lagged panel correlation. Measures of depression and pleasant events were taken at two different points in time separated by 1 month. The results revealed that the null hypothesis of spuriousness could not be rejected, indicating the relation often found between a lack of pleasant events and depression is probably due to some unmeasured third variable. The results also indicated that there is no causal relation between unpleasant events and depression. In summary, the causal assumptions in Lewinsohn's theory of depression were not supported by the data. Possible third-variable explanations of the data and their implications are discussed.