CUMULATIVE AND COMPENSATORY EFFECTS OF COMPETENCE AND INCOMPETENCE ONDEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN CHILDREN

The authors tested 5 hypotheses from a competency-based model of child depression using classification and regression tree analysis. The aut hors obtained measures of 5 domains of competency (i.e., academic comp etence, social acceptance, sports competence, physical attractiveness, and behavioral conduct) and depressive symptoms that were derived fro m parent, teacher, peer, and self-reports on 1,063 3rd- and 6th-grade children. Results suggested that ja) multiple domains of competence re lated to depressive symptoms, (b) significant others' positive evaluat ions in multiple domains have a cumulative inverse relation to depress ive symptoms, (c) negative evaluations in multiple domains have a cumu lative but positive relation to depressive symptoms, (d) positive eval uations in one domain somewhat compensate for negative evaluations in another domain. and (e) negative evaluations in one domain offset posi tive evaluations in another domain.