Developmental trajectories of positive and negative affect in children at high and low familial risk for depressive disorder

• Published in: Journal of child psychology and psychiatry Vol. 52; no. 7; pp. 792 - 799
• Main Authors: Olino, Thomas M., Lopez-Duran, Nestor L., Kovacs, Maria, George, Charles J., Gentzler, Amy L., Shaw, Daniel S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2011; Wiley-Blackwell; Blackwell
• Subjects: Affect; Affective Behavior; At Risk Persons; Biological and medical sciences; Case-Control Studies; Child; Child clinical studies; Child Development; Child of Impaired Parents - psychology; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Comorbidity; Comparative Analysis; Depression; Depression (Psychology); depression risk; Depressive Disorder - diagnosis; Depressive Disorder - genetics; Depressive Disorder - psychology; Depressive personality disorders; developmental trajectories; Familial factors; Family Environment; Family environment. Family history; Female; Genetic Predisposition to Disease - genetics; Genetic Predisposition to Disease - psychology; Humans; Individual Differences; Individuality; Infant; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Maternal Behavior - psychology; Maternal depression; Medical sciences; Mental depression; Mood disorders; Mother-Child Relations; Mothers; negative affect; Personality Assessment - statistics & numerical data; Pleasure; Positive affect; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychometrics; Psychopathology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Risk Factors; Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry; Human; Mood disorder; Affect affectivity; Depression; negative affect; Positive affect; developmental trajectories; Social interaction; Risk factor; Family environment; Familial relation; Child; depression risk
• ISSN: 0021-9630; 1469-7610
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02331.x

Background:  Although low positive affect (PA) and high negative affect (NA) have been posited to predispose to depressive disorders, little is known about the developmental trajectories of these affects in children at familial risk for mood disorders. Methods:  We examined 202 offspring of mothers who had a history of juvenile‐onset unipolar depressive disorder (n = 60) or no history of major psychopathology (n = 80). Offspring participated in up to seven annual, structured laboratory tasks that were designed to elicit PA and NA. Results:  Growth curve analyses revealed that PA increased linearly and similarly for all children from late infancy through age 9. However, there also were individual differences in early PA. Relative to control peers, offspring of mothers with lifetime unipolar depression had consistently lower levels of PA, and this association remained significant even when controlling for current maternal depression and maternal affect displays. Growth curve analyses also revealed a significant linear decrease in NA in children across time; however, there was no significant inter‐individual variation either in early NA or rate of change in NA. Conclusion:  Attenuated PA (rather than excessive NA) may be an early vulnerability factor for eventual unipolar depressive disorder in at‐risk children and may represent one pathway through which depression is transmitted.