Dynamics of affective experience and behavior in depressed adolescents

Unipolar depression disorders are an example of emotion regulation disorders. This disregulation is caused by two systems, namely the appetitive system and the aversive system. These systems determine the valence of affective states. Depression is associated with more activity and sensitivity to aversive emotional systems. These cause the appetitive emotional system to become less active and less sensitive. A person will experience more negative affect and reduced positive affect. Three factors that influence this experience are intensity, duration and frequency. Duration is associated with depression, especially when looking at maintaining positive affect and disruptive negative affect.

Depression is also associated with less activity in the left PFC. Targeted behavior is motivated by this area and this causes positive affect. The amygdala is more active in depressed adults and children. Reward related neural structures are less active.

Depressed people experience negative affect more intensely and positive affect less intensely. Depression is also associated with less intense immediate responses to positive and negative stimuli.

Adolescents are undergoing changes in affective competence and contextual challenges. This is why it is important to study development during this period. Literature focuses on disturbances in negative affect, but not on the dysregulation of positive affect. The hypothesis in this study is that depressed adolescents experience dysphoria and anger more frequently, more intensely and for a longer period of time. They will also experience less frequent, less intense and less long-term happiness. Various instruments and behavioral observations have been used to investigate this.

Methods

Participants and Measurements

Participants were 152 adolescents who do not take antidepressants, with ages between 14-18 and their parents. Participants were recruited through a school screening (CES-D) and an in-home diagnostic interview (K-SADS). Families who met the research criteria after the diagnostic interview were invited to participate in a lab assessment. During this assessment, use was made of questionnaires (AIM, PANAS-X, MEI / Child-MEI) and family interaction tasks (LIFE) that evoke happiness, anger or dysphoria.

Results

Experience

Depressed participants experience anger for longer. Depressed women experience dysphoria longer than healthy women. Depressed men experience dysphoria longer than healthy men. Healthy participants experience happiness for longer than depressed participants, according to the MEI, but not according to the observation data.

Frequency

Depressive participants experience anger more often than healthy participants. The difference between depressed and healthy adolescents is greater for women. Depressive participants experience dysphoria more often from healthy participants. Depressive participants experience happiness less often than healthy participants.

Intensity

Depressive participants experience anger more intensively than healthy participants. Depressive participants experience sadness more intensely compared to healthy participants.

Discussion

Various abnormalities were found in terms of duration, frequency and intensity of affect. Depressed participants experience anger longer. Depressed women experience dysphoria longer than healthy women. Data about happiness varies with different methods. These results are consistent with earlier work, because it is shown that depressed adolescents have difficulty retaining positive affect. Data about intensity is less solid, because observations are unreliable. Depressed women mainly experience more anger. In general, depressed adolescents experience more negative and sad affect. Experiencing less positive affect is not supported by the data found. The lack of observation data may reflect task limitations or self-report data may differ in how people remember and summarize their experiences, rather than the actual affective experience. This can cause the difference in data from observations and self-report measurements. In the future, studying the interpersonal context is also important because the family environment of depressed adolescents differs from the environment of healthy adolescents.

A limitation in this study is that relapse and recovery are not included. Affective disregulation has been studied, but this is a very broad term. The generalizability of this study is questionable because there is a lack of diversity in terms of race and ethnicity. Finally, the relationship between adolescents' responses and affective experience can be studied.