St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Psychology & Neuroscience (School of)
  • Psychology & Neuroscience
  • Psychology & Neuroscience Theses
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Psychology & Neuroscience (School of)
  • Psychology & Neuroscience
  • Psychology & Neuroscience Theses
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Psychology & Neuroscience (School of)
  • Psychology & Neuroscience
  • Psychology & Neuroscience Theses
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Emotion-related information processing biases associated with depression in childhood

Thumbnail
View/Open
LyndseyElizabethDrummondPhDThesis.pdf (50.62Mb)
Date
2006
Author
Drummond, Lyndsey Elizabeth
Supervisor
Dritschel, Barbara
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Abstract
Few studies have examined depression in children from an Information Processing (IP) perspective. In this thesis a number of domains of IP (known to be associated with adult depression)are examined in children and adolescents, in particular, autobiographical memory specificity in both clinical and non-clinical samples. Foremost, overgeneral memory (OGM) was found for the first time, to be characteristic of dysphoric (Study 1) and clinically depressed children (Study 2). Similarity in the extent of the OGM bias in depressed and dysphoric children was observed. OGM was also comparable across child, adolescent and adult depressed groups (Study 2). Second, OGM predicted depressive symptoms in children during a stressful life event, in the first longitudinal diathesis-stress investigation of OGM to date (Study 3). OGM was also linked for the first time to an overgeneral thinking style and to a depressive attributional style (Study 3) thereby offering possible mechanistic insight in OGM. Third, in support of Williams' (1996) developmental origins hypothesis, OGM was also demonstrated in children in residential care who had suffered significant independently verified negative life events (Study 5). OGM in these youth was positively correlated with deficits in social problem solving and facial-affect identification, in part contextualizing OGM in children alongside depresso-typical biases. Performance on the AMT also varied as a function of severity of abuse with more abused children demonstrating less OGM -a recency memorial coping strategy is proposed to account for this effect. Fourth, a new measure of EF was introduced and highlights the importance of encoding preferences in explaining 0GM (Studies I& 5). Finally, considerable attention is paid to the pattern of valence results across studies. It is noted that effects most often lie with biases in the processing of positive information and that future studies may benefit from a concentration on this aspect of depressogenic bias utilizing a developmental perspective. Several key theoretical and practical implications are carefully discussed.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Collections
  • Psychology & Neuroscience Theses
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2657

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter