Flancbaum, Michael J.. The effects of rumination on the timing of maternal and child depressive symptoms. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3W0952J
DescriptionThe goal of the current study was to examine whether child rumination serves as a moderator of the temporal association between maternal and child depressive symptoms. Participants included 88 mothers with a history of major depressive episodes and their 123 children (59 boys and 64 girls). Using a multi-wave longitudinal design, mothers and their children were assessed at baseline and again every six weeks for the subsequent year. During the initial assessment, mothers and their children completed measures assessing depressive symptoms and children completed measures assessing their tendency to ruminate in response to such symptoms. At each follow-up assessment, mothers and their children completed measures assessing depressive symptoms. Consistent with hypotheses, children with a ruminative response style were more likely than other children to experience increases in depressive symptoms following increases in their mothers’ depressive symptoms. Contrary to hypotheses, however, the strength of this association did not vary as a function of child gender.