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，他人的排斥似乎会维持和加剧抑郁症患者的抑郁症状。然而，人际排斥导致抑郁并加剧抑郁症状的机制目前尚不清楚。因此，这项拟议的研究将在社会拒绝范式之前和之后测量唾液皮质醇，以评估人们在人际拒绝之后经历的心理困扰水平，以及这在抑郁症的发展中可能发挥的作用。具体来说，本研究旨在1)确定在社会排斥反应中唾液皮质醇是否增加，2)确定抑郁是否调节社会排斥和唾液皮质醇之间的关系，3)确定女性在社会排斥反应中是否比男性经历更大的心理困扰。假设：1)被社会排斥后，唾液皮质醇显著升高，表明经历了心理困扰；2)抑郁个体（BDI >= 16）对社会排斥反应的唾液皮质醇分泌高于非抑郁个体（BDI <=6），表明抑郁个体对社会排斥反应的敏感性高于非抑郁个体；3)女性在被他人拒绝后，唾液皮质醇会比男性增加得更多，这表明女性在被社会拒绝时经历了更大的心理痛苦。

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.