Cognitive Triad and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: Specificity and Overlap

Igor Marchetti,Patrick Pössel

doi:10.1007/s10578-022-01323-w

Igor Marchetti, Patrick Pössel

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-022-01323-w

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Abstract

Adolescence is a critical period for the development of depressive symptoms and the understanding of vulnerability factors that facilitate their onset is pivotal. In this study, we focused on Beck’s cognitive triad, namely its three-fold structure, comprising views of the self, world, and future. Despite its crucial role in the cognitive theory of depression, the relationship between the cognitive triad and depressive symptoms in adolescence is still unclear. In our study, we adopted a meta-analytic commonality analysis approach, in order to clarify whether the three components of the triad overlap in accounting for depressive symptoms, or they show distinct profiles of association. By relying on six independent samples of early adolescents (age range = 13–14: n = 174, 66% female, n = 347, 41% female), mid adolescents (age range = 15–17: n = 304, 61% female; n = 92, 34% female), and late adolescents (age range = 18–21: n = 217, 84% female, n = 101, 56% female), we showed that the views of the self, world, and future substantially overlap in accounting for depressive symptoms, although specific areas of distinctiveness could be detected. Moreover, the association between the cognitive triad and depressive symptoms appeared to be a function of both the developmental phase and gender. Furthermore, the cognitive triad emerged as specifically related to symptoms related to negative mood, absence of positive mood, and negative appraisal of the past. These findings advance our understanding of cognitive vulnerability for depressive symptoms in adolescence.

Highlights

Affecting about 350 million people worldwide, depression is responsible for a large proportion of the burden of disease [1] and represents a main source of total disability adjusted life years [2]
We considered whether the association between the components of the cognitive triad and depressive symptoms were different between early adolescents (13- to 14-year-olds), mid adolescents (15- to 17-year-olds), and late adolescents (18- to 21-year-olds), and between boys and girls
The fixed-effect meta-analytic commonality analysis was performed across the six data sets, where the three components of the cognitive triad served as predictors and the depressive symptoms total score served as criterion (Table 2; Fig. 2)

Summary

Introduction

Affecting about 350 million people worldwide, depression is responsible for a large proportion of the burden of disease [1] and represents a main source of total disability adjusted life years [2]. 20% of girls and 7% of boys experience depressive symptoms before the end of their adolescence [7, 8] This scenario raises the question whether the strength of the associations between some vulnerability factors and symptoms of depression changes from early to late adolescence and whether they are different depending on gender. According to Beck’s cognitive theory [9], a crucial mechanism that facilitates depressive symptoms is the cognitive triad This construct refers to a three-fold structure, consisting of negative views of the self, world, and future. Some studies showed that the negative views of the self and the future were the components most strongly correlated with depressive symptoms in adolescence [10, 15], while other studies stressed the role of the negative views of the world in children and adolescents [16, 17]. We hypothesized that the cognitive triad is substantially associated with negative mood, lack of positive mood, feelings of past failures, worthlessness, hopelessness, and negative evaluation of people

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