COMPETENCY BASED MODEL OF CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEPRESSION

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DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): The goal of this project is to extend and expand a very successful longitudinal study of the relation between depression and multiple domains of competence in children. Some hypotheses derive from a competency-based model of child depression (see Cole, 1990, 1991, Cole et.al, in press). Others extend this model to examine the emergence of cognitive diatheses and gender differences in depression that appear in adolescence. In the original multitrait-multimethod study, we collected parent, teacher, peer, and self-reports on five domains of compe-tence, depression, and anxiety. Data were gathered for six waves over a three-year period from more than 1000 children who were third and sixth graders at the onset of that study. The current study will extend data collection for four more years (cohort 1: 6th=> 9th grade; cohort 2: 9th=>12th grade) adding important new measures. Questions of interest include (1) Does competence predict change in depression over time; does depression predict change in competence over time; and does the strength of these relations vary with children's age? (2) Do individual differences in competencies predict change in depression, anxiety, or broad band negativity? (3) How does the relation between depression and anxiety vary with children's age? (4) Which domains of competence become more (or less) related to depression as children enter middle adolescence? (5) Can competencies in "new" domains of competence protect the adolescent from the effects of incompetence in other domains? (6) In early to middle adolescence, do cognitive self-structure begin to interact with negative life events to forestall or promulgate depression? (7) To what extent does a history of self- or other-perceived competencies mediate or moderate the relation between gender and depression that emerges in adoles-cence? Structural equation modeling, hierarchical linear modeling, and CART analyses will be used to address these issues.