Rates of depression have been observed to increase markedly during adolescence. In addition, depression rates for adolescent girls have been reported to be up to twice those of boys. A wide variety of factors have been proposed to account for these changes, including psychological factors derived from cognitive theories of depression. Such theories have often awarded an important contributory role to a negative self-concept. In the meantime, research in child and adolescent development has revealed that the self-concept undergoes profound changes during adolescence, and that these changes affect boys and girls differently. Thus the significant sex difference in rates of depression occurring in adolescence appear to develop against the backdrop of significant structural and evaluative developmental changes in the self-concept that appear to differentially affect adolescent girls and boys. The current research project was aimed at examining the roles of two aspects of the self-concept proposed to be involved in the development of depressive symptoms and clinically significant episodes of depression in adolescence, namely: self-complexity and contingency of self-worth. These constructs were selected based on their empirically demonstrated relationship with depression in youth or adults, as well as their relationship with changes occurring in the self-concept during early adolescence. In order to examine the roles of self-complexity and contingency of self-worth, a large community sample of early adolescents was recruited and followed for a period of two years. During this period, participants were contacted to monitor changes in depressive symptoms, the occurrence of negative life events, and the onset of clinically significant episodes of depression. Results reveal that self-complexity best predicted depressive outcomes when deconstructed into its positive and negative components. Moreover, negative self-complexity successfully predicted the prospective onset of clinically significant episodes of major depression. In regards to the contingency of self-worth, results supported a previous self-worth contingency model of depression, but suggest that this conceptualization cannot account entirely for the phenomenology of depression in adolescence. Two additional conceptualizations of contingent self-worth were proposed and supported. Sex differences were observed. Results were interpreted within a cognitive vulnerability framework.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.115669 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Adams, Philippe. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 003163594, proquestno: AAINR66279, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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