Depression, Cortisol, & Interpersonal Interaction

描述（由申请人提供）：社会排斥预示着广泛的心理问题，包括抑郁症的发展。此外，被他人拒绝似乎会维持和加剧抑郁症患者的抑郁症状。然而，人际排斥导致抑郁症和加重抑郁症状的机制目前尚不清楚。因此，拟议的研究将测量唾液皮质醇之前和之后的社会拒绝范例，以评估人们在人际拒绝之后经历的心理困扰水平，以及这可能在抑郁症的发展中发挥的作用。具体来说，这项研究旨在1）确定唾液皮质醇是否会增加对社会排斥的反应，2）确定抑郁是否会调节社会排斥和唾液皮质醇之间的关系，3）确定女性是否会比男性更容易受到社会排斥的心理困扰。本研究假设：1）社会排斥后唾液皮质醇会显著增加，表明心理困扰的经历; 2）抑郁个体（BDI >= 16）的抑郁症患者比（BDI <=6）的非抑郁症患者对社会排斥反应的唾液皮质醇分泌量更大，提示抑郁症患者比非抑郁症患者对社会排斥反应更敏感; 3）被他人拒绝后，女性唾液皮质醇的增加幅度大于男性，这表明女性对社会拒绝的心理痛苦更大。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social rejection predicts a wide range of psychological problems, including the development of depression. In addition, rejection by others appears to maintain and exacerbate depressive symptoms for depressed individuals. The mechanism(s) by which interpersonal rejection causes depression and exacerbates depressive symptoms, however, is currently unknown. The proposed study will therefore measure salivary cortisol before and after a social rejection paradigm to assess the level of psychological distress people experience subsequent to interpersonal rejection and how this might play a role in the development of depression. Specifically, this research aims to 1) determine if salivary cortisol increases in response to social rejection, 2) determine if depression modulates the relationship between social rejection and salivary cortisol, and 3) determine if women experience greater psychological distress than men in response to social rejection. It is hypothesized that 1) salivary cortisol will increase significantly following a social rejection, indicating the experience of psychological distress; 2) depressed individuals (BDI >= 16) will exhibit greater salivary cortisol secretion in response to social rejection than non-depressed individuals (BDI <=6), suggesting that depressed individuals are more sensitive to social rejection than non-depressed individuals; and 3) women will exhibit greater increases in salivary cortisol following rejection by others than will men, demonstrating that women experience greater psychological distress to social rejection.