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Project

Negative self-referent processing in depressive adolescents

The epidemiological data are alarming: depression is affecting 8-20% of all youth. This underscores the critical importance of identifying factors involved in the development and maintenance of adolescent depression. Evidence converges on the idea that negative selffocused thinking, at the expense of more positive self-related thoughts is such a factor. However is it the excessive negative selfthinking or rather the lack of protective positive self-thinking which is the crucial factor here; or are both important but related to different core symptoms of depression (increased negative affect vs. decreased positive affect/anhedonia)?  Up till now most studies either focused on negative self-thinking or solely on positive self-thinking. Such studies can only paint a partial picture of biased self-referential thinking in the context of depression. In this project, we will use a recently and promising paradigm that allows to assess the positive self-thinking separately from the negative self-thinking. This proposal has straightforward theoretical and clinical implications. At the theoretical level, the project is expected to contribute to the improved understanding of the role that such biases play in depression and its core symptoms: sad mood and anhedonia. At the clinical level, the results are expected to open new and important possibilities to screen youngsters for vulnerability to depression and to develop appropriate interventions to reduce depression.
 

Date:21 Aug 2017 →  31 Aug 2023
Keywords:Depression, Information processing biases, Emotion regulation
Disciplines:Psychopathology
Project type:PhD project