A prospective study of stress sensitivity: Emotion regulation as a moderator of the stress-depression relationship
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1
Victoria University of Wellington, School of Psychology, New Zealand
According to the Diathesis-Stress Model, vulnerabilities in neurological, physiological, cognitive or affective systems predispose some people to stress sensitivity, meaning they are more likely to become depressed when they experience stress. We tested this model in a prospective study with a group of young women (aged 18 - 23). At the first session, we measured depression and three potential vulnerabilities that have been identified in the literature: EEG asymmetry in frontal activity, self-reported brooding rumination and responses to emotional images. We assessed emotional response with the startle eye-blink paradigm during passive picture viewing (emotional reactivity) and one second after picture offset (spontaneous emotion regulation). Three months later we measured subjective life stress and depression. Frontal asymmetry did not predict changes in depressive symptoms, but life stress, brooding rumination and emotion regulation did. Consistent with the Diathesis-Stress Model, the relationship between stress and depression was moderated by emotion regulation. Women who failed to effectively regulate emotional responses showed stress sensitivity, that is, more stress predicted greater increases in depressive symptoms over time. However, effective emotion regulators showed no relationship between stress and depression. Emotion regulation also interacted with rumination to predict changes in depression. Failure to regulate negative emotion was predictive of higher depression scores only when brooding rumination was low, such that high rumination overrode the influence of emotion regulation ability. Findings suggest that emotion regulation ability is a key aspect of stress sensitivity.
Keywords:
Depression,
EEG,
Emotion Regulation,
Vulnerability,
life stress,
rumination,
frontal asymmetry,
startle reflex
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Emotional and Social Processes
Citation:
Tooley
M,
Jose
P and
Grimshaw
G
(2015). A prospective study of stress sensitivity: Emotion regulation as a moderator of the stress-depression relationship.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00327
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Gina Grimshaw, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Psychology, Wellington, New Zealand, Gina.Grimshaw@vuw.ac.nz