Co-brooding and co-reflection as differential predictors of depressive symptoms and friendship quality in adolescents: Investigating the moderating role of gender

Co-rumination has been shown advantageous for friendship quality, but disadvantageous for mental health. Recently, two components have been distinguished, with co-brooding predicting increases in depressive symptoms and co-reflection decreases. The current study aimed to replicate these findings and investigated whether both components also show differential relations with friendship quality. Gender was investigated as a moderator. Path analyses were used on data of 313 adolescents aged 9-17 (50.5% girls). Co-brooding was related to more concurrent and prospective depressive symptoms in girls. Co-reflection predicted less concurrent and prospective depressive symptoms in girls and higher concurrent positive friendship quality for boys and girls. This study underscores the value of studying co-rumination components and suggests that boys and girls in this context differ in their pathways towards depression.

Publication year:2018

BOF-keylabel:yes

IOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:2

CSS-citation score:2

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open