The role of interpretation biases and physiological stress reactivity in the familial transmission of depression

• Applicant: Dr. Belinda Platt
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 462620213

Children of depressed parents have a higher risk of developing depression themselves. Unfortunately, existing preventive interventions show modest effects. This may be due to the fact that relatively little is known about how depression risk is transferred from parent to child. The aim of the current project is to understand how patterns of negative thinking may lead to increased sensitivity to stress in the children of depressed (high risk; HR) versus mentally healthy (low-risk; LR) parents. The project contains two experimental studies which are conducted over three years.In the first study the following two hypotheses are tested:1. HR children show more negative patterns of thinking when they are exposed to stress2. HR children show changes in cortisol reactivity when they are exposed to stressIn the first study 100 HR and 100 LR children aged 10-14 years will be recruited and take part in two sessions. In the first session children and their parents take part in a clinical interview to check that they fulfil the inclusion criteria for the study. In the second session all children take part in a stressful task in which they have to give a public speech. Stress reactivity will be measured for the duration of the second session by collecting regular saliva samples. In addition, children will complete a computer-based task in which they have to unscramble scrambled sentences. The task has been shown to be an accurate way of measuring patterns of negative thinking. In the second study the following three hypotheses are tested:1. The training is effective in improving patterns of negative thinking2. Patterns of negative thinking have a causal effect on (cortisol) stress reactivity 3. HR children who receive the training show a greater reduction in (cortisol) stress reactivity compared to LR children who receive the trainingIn this study all children in study 1 will receive 4 weeks of positive thinking training (experimental group) or non-specific training (control group). After training the same measures of thinking patterns and cortisol stress reactivity used in study 1 will be re-applied. Although previous studies have shown that HR children tend to think more negatively and may react physiologically more sensitively to stress than LR children, this project is the first to investigate the extent to which thinking patterns causally influence stress reactivity. This is an important next step in the improvement of preventive interventions for children of depressed parents.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Frans J. Oort