Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T16:15:55.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Interpersonal cognitive biases as genetic markers for pediatric depressive symptoms: Twin data from the Emotions, Cognitions, Heredity and Outcome (ECHO) study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2014

Jennifer Y. F. Lau*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford King's College London Institute of Psychiatry
Stefano R. Belli
Affiliation:
University of Oxford King's College London Institute of Psychiatry
Alice M. Gregory
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths College
Thalia C. Eley
Affiliation:
King's College London Institute of Psychiatry
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Jennifer Lau, Psychology Department, Box P077, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, DeCrespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK; E-mail: jennifer.lau@kcl.ac.uk.

Abstract

Childhood depressive symptoms may arise from genetic and environmental risks, which act to bias the ways in which children process emotional information. Previous studies show that several “cognitive biases” are heritable and share genetic and environmental risks with depressive symptoms. Past research suggests that many cognitive biases only reflect genetic risks for depressive symptoms from adolescence. The present study sought to identify (a) when interpersonal cognitions mature as risk factors for depressive symptoms by examining whether these factors are stable and predict symptoms across time in childhood, and (b) the extent to which interpersonal cognitions reflect inherited/environmental risks on children's depressive symptoms. Results showed that there was some stability for interpersonal cognitive biases from age 8 to 10 years (rs = .32–.43). Only the absence of positive self/other perceptions, and negative peer and mother expectations at age 8 predicted depressive symptoms at age 10 (after controlling for depressive symptoms at age 8). The absence of positive self/other perceptions shared genetic influences with depressive symptoms within and across time. Across middle to late childhood, interpersonal cognitions begin to operate as vulnerability-trait factors for depressive symptoms, gradually reflecting distal genetic risks on symptoms.

Type
Regular Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akaike, H. (1974). A new look at the statistical model identification. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 19, 716723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akaike, H. (1987). Factor analysis and AIC. Psychometrika, 52, 317332.Google Scholar
Bar-Haim, Y. (2010). Research review: Attention bias modification (ABM): A novel treatment for anxiety disorders. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51, 859870.Google Scholar
Caldwell, M. S., Rudolph, K. D., Troop-Gordon, W., & Kim, D. Y. (2004). Reciprocal influences among relational self-views, social disengagement, and peer stress during early adolescence. Child Development, 75, 11401154.Google Scholar
Cole, D. A., & Turner, J. E. Jr. (1993). Models of cognitive mediation and moderation in child depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 271281.Google Scholar
Costello, E. J., Mustillo, S., Erkanli, A., Keeler, G., & Angold, A. (2003). Prevalence and development of psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 837844.Google Scholar
Dineen, K. A., & Hadwin, J. A. (2004). Anxious and depressive symptoms and children's judgements of their own and others' interpretation of ambiguous social scenarios. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 18, 499513.Google Scholar
Dunn, V., & Goodyer, I. M. (2006). Longitudinal investigation into childhood- and adolescence-onset depression: Psychiatric outcome in early adulthood. British Journal of Psychiatry, 188, 216222.Google Scholar
Edelsohn, G., Ialongo, N., Werthamer-Larsson, L., Crockett, L., & Kellam, S. (1992). Self-reported depressive symptoms in first-grade children: Developmentally transient phenomena? Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 31, 282290.Google Scholar
Eley, T. C., Gregory, A. M., Clark, D. M., & Ehlers, A. (2007). Feeling anxious: A twin study of panic/somatic ratings, anxiety sensitivity and heartbeat perception in children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 11841191.Google Scholar
Eley, T. C., Gregory, A. M., Lau, J. Y., McGuffin, P., Napolitano, M., Rijsdijk, F. V., et al. (2008). In the face of uncertainty: A twin study of ambiguous information, anxiety and depression in children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 5565.Google Scholar
Eley, T. C., & Stevenson, J. (2000). Specific life events and chronic experiences differentially associated with depression and anxiety in young twins. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 28, 383394.Google Scholar
Field, A. P. (2006). Watch out for the beast: Fear information and attentional bias in children. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 35, 431439.Google Scholar
Gladstone, T. R., & Kaslow, N. J. (1995). Depression and attributions in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 23, 597606.Google Scholar
Grave, J., & Blissett, J. (2004). Is cognitive behavior therapy developmentally appropriate for young children? A critical review of the evidence. Clinical Psychological Review, 24, 399420.Google Scholar
Gregory, A. M., Rijsdijk, F. V., Lau, J. Y., Napolitano, M., McGuffin, P., & Eley, T. C. (2007). Genetic and environmental influences on interpersonal cognitions and associations with depressive symptoms in 8-year-old twins. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116, 762775.Google Scholar
Haddad, A. D., Lissek, S., Pine, D. S., & Lau, J. Y. (2011). How do social fears in adolescence develop? Fear conditioning shapes attention orienting to social threat cues. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 11391147.Google Scholar
Haller, S. P., Cohen Kadosh, K., & Lau, J. Y. (2013). A developmental angle to understanding the mechanisms of biased cognition in social anxiety. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 846. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00846 Google Scholar
Haworth, C. M., Wright, M. J., Luciano, M., Martin, N. G., de Geus, E. J., van Beijsterveldt, C. E., et al. (2010). The heritability of general cognitive ability increases linearly from childhood to young adulthood. Molecular Psychiatry, 15, 11121120.Google Scholar
Hodges, K. (1990). Depression and anxiety in children: A comparison of self-report questionnaires to clinical interview. Psychological Assessment, 2, 376381.Google Scholar
Kovacs, M. (1985). The Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). Psychopharmacological Bulletin, 21, 995998.Google Scholar
Kovacs, M., & Beck, A. T. (1978). Maladaptive cognitive structures in depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 135, 525533.Google Scholar
Lau, J. Y. (2013). Cognitive bias modification of interpretations: A viable treatment for child and adolescent anxiety? Behaviour Research and Therapy, 51, 614622. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2013.07.001 Google Scholar
Lau, J. Y., Belli, S. D., Gregory, A. M., Napolitano, M., & Eley, T. C. (2012). The role of children's negative attributions on depressive symptoms: An inherited characteristic or a product of the early environment? Developmental Science, 15, 569578.Google Scholar
Lau, J. Y., & Eley, T. C. (2008). Attributional style as a risk marker of genetic effects for adolescent depressive symptoms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 117, 849859.Google Scholar
Lau, J. Y., Gregory, A. M., Goldwin, M. A., Pine, D. S., & Eley, T. C. (2007). Assessing gene–environment interactions on anxiety symptom subtypes across childhood and adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 11291146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lau, J. Y., Rijsdijk, F., & Eley, T. C. (2006). I think, therefore I am: A twin study of attributional style in adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 696703.Google Scholar
Lau, J. Y., Rijsdijk, F., Gregory, A. M., McGuffin, P., & Eley, T. C. (2007). Pathways to childhood depressive symptoms: The role of social, cognitive, and genetic risk factors. Developmental Psychology, 43, 14021414.Google Scholar
Murray, L., Woolgar, M., Cooper, P., & Hipwell, A. (2001). Cognitive vulnerability to depression in 5-year-old children of depressed mothers. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 891899.Google Scholar
Nelson, E. E., Lau, J. Y. F., & Jarcho, J. M. (in press). Growing pains and pleasures: How emotional learning guides development. Trends in Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Pass, L., Arteche, A., Cooper, P., Creswell, C., & Murray, L. (2012). Doll play narratives about starting school in children of socially anxious mothers, and their relation to subsequent child school-based anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 40, 13751384.Google Scholar
Rice, F., Harold, G. T., Shelton, K. H., & Thapar, A. (2006). Family conflict interacts with genetic liability in predicting childhood and adolescent depression. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 45, 841848.Google Scholar
Rice, F., Harold, G., & Thapar, A. (2002). The genetic aetiology of childhood depression: A review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43, 6579.Google Scholar
Rudolph, K. D., Hammen, C., & Burge, D. (1995). Cognitive representations of self, family, and peers in school-age children: Links with social competence and sociometric status. Child Development, 66, 13851402.Google Scholar
Rudolph, K. D., Hammen, C., & Burge, D. (1997). A cognitive–interpersonal approach to depressive symptoms in preadolescent children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 25, 3345.Google Scholar
Steiger, J. H. (1990). Structural model evaluation and modification: An interval estimation approach. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 25, 173180.Google Scholar
Steiger, J. H., & Lind, J. C. (1980). Statistically-based tests for the number of common factors. Paper presented at the Spring Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Iowa City, IA.Google Scholar
Trouton, A., Spinath, F. M., & Plomin, R. (2002). Twins Early Development Study (TEDS): A multivariate, longitudinal genetic investigation of language, cognition and behavior problems in childhood. Twin Research, 5, 444448.Google Scholar
Turner, J. E. Jr., & Cole, D. A. (1994). Developmental differences in cognitive diatheses for child depression. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 22, 1532.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, P. O., Trzaskowski, M., Haworth, C. M., & Eley, T. C. (2013). The role of gene–environment correlations and interactions in middle childhood depressive symptoms. Development and Psychopathology, 25, 93104.Google Scholar
Zavos, H. M., Rijsdijk, F. V., Gregory, A. M., & Eley, T. C. (2010). Genetic influences on the cognitive biases associated with anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents. Journal of Affective Disorders, 124, 4553.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Lau Supplementary Material

Table S1 and S2

Download Lau Supplementary Material(File)
File 184.3 KB