Intimacy in Relationships and Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression in Adolescent Girls

Abstract

By applying principles of developmental psychopathology, it was proposed that low intimacy in adolescent girls' developmentally salient relationships, i.e., with best friends and romantic partners, is associated with cognitive vulnerability to depression. At Time 1, 72 late adolescent girls completed the Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992) to assess intimacy in relationships with best friends, romantic partners, mothers, and fathers. At Time 2, the adolescents participated in a negative mood induction. The adolescents completed the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (Weisman & Beck, 1978) before and after the mood induction. The results indicated that little to no intimacy in romantic relationships was associated with cognitive reactivity in a negative mood. Little to no intimacy in relationships with best friends, mothers, and fathers was not associated with cognitive reactivity. Romantic relationships appear to play a key role in adolescent girls' well-being in late adolescence, and low intimacy in these relationships is associated with latent, negative cognitions.