Cognitive triad : Relationship to depressive symptoms, parents' cognitive triad, and perceived parental messages

• Published in: Journal of abnormal child psychology 1996-10, Vol.24 (5), p.615-631
• Main Authors: STARK, K. D, SCHMIDT, K. L, JOINER, T. E
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Analysis of Variance; Anxiety Disorders; Attitude; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child clinical studies; Child Development; Child psychology; Children; Children & youth; Childrens Attitudes; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive aspects; Cognitive Processes; Communication; Criticism; Depression; Depression - psychology; Emotional Disturbances; Family (Sociological Unit); Female; Grade 4; Humans; Information Processing; Interview, Psychological; Mainstreaming; Male; Medical sciences; Mental depression; Mental Disorders; Models, Psychological; Mood disorders; Mothers; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Parents & parenting; Psychology, Child; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Regression Analysis; Relationship; Schizophrenia; Severity of Illness Index; Thinking
• ISSN: 0091-0627; 2730-7166; 1573-2835; 2730-7174
• DOI: 10.1007/BF01670103

Evaluating the relationship between children's depressogenic thinking, children's depressive symptoms, parents' depressogenic thinking, and perceived parental messages about the self, world, and future was the primary objective of this investigation. Children (n = 133) from grades 4 to 7 completed measures of depression and anxiety, including a semistructured clinical interview, a measure of their cognitive triad, and a measure of perceived parental messages about the self, world, and future. Mothers (n = 112) and fathers (n = 95) completed a measure of their own cognitive triad. Results of a series of regression analyses revealed that (1) children's views of self, world, and future (cognitive triad) are related to severity of depression; (2) mothers' but not fathers' cognitive triads are related to their children's cognitive triads; (3) perceived parental messages to the children about the self, world, and future are predictive of the children's cognitive triads and ratings of depression; and (4) the relationship between perceived parental messages and depression is completely mediated by children's cognitive triads. Analyses of covariance indicated that the obtained mediational relationship between children's views of self, world, and future, perceived parental messages, and children's depressive symptoms was specific to depressive versus anxious symptomatology. Implications for existing theory and research are discussed.