Research Article
Stress Response and Emotional Security in the Intergenerational Transmission of Depressive Symptoms
Kristen Wilkinson* and Emily Cook
Department of psychology, Rhode Island College, 600 Mount Pleasant Ave, North Providence, RI 02908, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Kristen Wilkinson
Department of psychology
Rhode Island College
600 Mount Pleasant Ave
North Providence, RI 02908, USA
Tel: 4017936019
E-mail: [email protected]
Received Date: August 07, 2015; Accepted Date: February 26, 2016; Published Date: February 29, 2016
Citation: Wilkinson K and Cook E (2016) Stress Response and Emotional Security in the Intergenerational Transmission of Depressive Symptoms. J Child Adolesc Behav 4:283. doi:10.4172/2375-4494.1000283
Copyright: © 2016 Wilkinson K, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The aim of this study is to focus on stress reactivity as a moderator of the transmission of depression from mothers to adolescents through emotional insecurity. One hundred mother-adolescent dyads living in the Northeast of the United States were examined, with adolescents between the ages of 13 to 17. Data was collected in the home through surveys, a mother-adolescent interaction task and physiological measures from the adolescent to examine stress response. Results suggested that adolescents’ emotional insecurity mediated the relationship between maternal and adolescent depressive symptoms. Findings also provided some support that adolescents who evidenced a higher stress response to the conflict interaction task appeared more vulnerable to the transmission of depression through emotional insecurity. These findings can help in the understanding the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms from mothers to adolescents through important factors such as quality of attachment and stress reactivity.
