(PS3-35) Low Reward Sensitivity and Maladaptive Cognitive Styles Jointly Predict Depressive Symptom Severity among Community Adolescents

Abstract Text:

Background: Depression is a highly prevalent and debilitating disorder, with symptoms often emerging during adolescence. Reward models of depression propose that low sensitivity to rewards represents a candidate vulnerability for depression. As reward hyposensitivity is associated with greater frequency of goal losses and failures, individuals prone to generating negative inferences about their self-worth or future in response to such events may be at greater risk for depression than individuals who possess adaptive cognitive styles. Similarly, individuals with low reward sensitivity who are prone to brooding also may be more likely to experience depression, as previous work posits that brooding exacerbates and sustains distress by increasing negative self-focus and interfering with goal-oriented behavior. Taken together, maladaptive cognitive styles may compound distress caused by reward-related failures frequently experienced by individuals with reward hyposensitivity, thereby increasing depression risk. Despite strong theoretical underpinnings, few studies have examined both reward sensitivity and cognitive styles in the prediction of depression. We sought to address this gap by exploring the roles of reward sensitivity and cognitive styles as joint predictors of depression severity.

Method: Adolescents (N = 187; Mage = 14.97 years, SD = 0.99; 57% Female; 53% White), oversampled for low reward sensitivity, completed baseline measures of brooding, negative inferential style (NIS), and trait reward sensitivity (BAS). At baseline and a six-month follow-up, participants completed a self-report measure of depressive symptom severity.

Results: Controlling for adolescents’ sex and race, hierarchical regression modeling did not detect cognitive style-by-BAS Total score interactions on concurrent symptom severity for either NIS (ß = -.13, p = .067, ΔR2 = .014) or brooding (ß = -.03, p = .612, ΔR2 = .001). However, BAS-Reward Responsiveness and Drive subscales interacted with brooding to predict depression severity (|ß|s > .12, ps < .044, ΔR2 = .017 – .021). At high levels of brooding, low reward responsivity was significantly associated with depression severity (ß = -.26, p < .01); conversely, low drive was associated with depression severity only at low levels of brooding (ß = -.18, p < .05). Further, a NIS-by-BAS-Fun Seeking interaction was detected (ß = -.14, p = .049, ΔR2 =.016), such that low tendency toward fun seeking was associated with depression only at high levels of NIS (ß = -.18, p < .05). We did not find any cognitive style-by-BAS interactions for NIS (|ß|s < .06, ps > .420, ΔR2 < .003) or brooding (|ß|s < .07, ps > .279, ΔR2 < .005) that was predictive of future depression severity, above and beyond baseline symptoms.

Conclusion: Ruminative brooding and negative inferential style interacted with different facets of trait reward sensitivity to predict concurrent, but not future, depressive symptom severity. Our results suggest that the association between blunted reward sensitivity and depression is strengthened among adolescents prone to specific cognitive styles; however, this conclusion does not hold for all facets of reward sensitivity. The implications for research, theory, and practice will be discussed.