Abstract
Depressive symptoms have been related to anxious rejection sensitivity, but little is known about relations with angry rejection sensitivity and justice sensitivity. We measured rejection sensitivity, justice sensitivity, and depressive symptoms in 1,665 9-to-21-year olds at two points of measurement. Participants with high T1 levels of depressive symptoms reported higher anxious and angry rejection sensitivity and higher justice sensitivity than controls at T1 and T2. T1 rejection, but not justice sensitivity predicted T2 depressive symptoms; high victim justice sensitivity, however, added to the stabilization of depressive symptoms. T1 depressive symptoms positively predicted T2 anxious and angry rejection and victim justice sensitivity. Hence, sensitivity toward negative social cues may be cause and consequence of depressive symptoms and requires consideration in cognitive-behavioral treatment of depression.
Highlights
Depressive symptoms are frequent mental health problems with increasing prevalence during adolescence, among females (Nolen-Hoeksema and Girgus, 1994; Preiß and Remschmidt, 2007; Bertha and Balázs, 2013; Salk et al, 2016)
The present study examined the links of rejection and justice sensitivity as examples for traits that guide individual’s perceptions and responses to social cues with depressive symptoms in children and adolescents
We investigated the mutual long-term influence of rejection sensitivity (RS) and justice sensitivity (JS) and depressive symptoms via latent cross-lagged and latent-change models in a large sample of German children and adolescents
Summary
Depressive symptoms are frequent mental health problems with increasing prevalence during adolescence, among females (Nolen-Hoeksema and Girgus, 1994; Preiß and Remschmidt, 2007; Bertha and Balázs, 2013; Salk et al, 2016). It is important to identify risk factors for depressive symptoms that are adequate starting points for prevention and intervention in this age range. Trait factors reflecting vulnerabilities to negative social cues may work to intensify the links of negative social experiences and depressive symptoms. In line with this reasoning, depressive symptoms have been related to anxious rejection sensitivity (RS; Ayduk et al, 2001), the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and inadequately react to alleged rejection (Downey and Feldman, 1996). This, seems important, given that depressive symptoms and aggressive behavior are closely related
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