COGNITIVE VULNERABILITY IN CHILDREN AT RISK FOR DEPRESSION

Cognitive vulnerability was studied in children (mean age = 11.87, SD = 0.57) who varied in their degree of risk for mood disorders as deter mined by their mothers' psychiatric histories. The ''high-risk'' group (n = 174) comprised offspring of mothers with histories of nonbipolar mood disorders, whereas the ''low-risk'' group (n = 55) included chil dren whose parents were lifetime-free of psychopathology. Children com pleted a battery of questionnaires about deep level (i.e. attributions , self-worth, perceived competence, dysfunctional attitudes, self-crit icism) and surface level cognitions (i.e. automatic negative thoughts, hopelessness). Children and mothers also were interviewed about the e xtent of the child's depressive symptoms during the previous two weeks . Results indicated that high-risk children, particularly offspring of mothers with a more chronic history of depression, reported a signifi cantly more negative cognitive style than low-risk children. Even when children's current level of depressive symptoms was controlled, high- and low-risk children continued to differ with regard to their attribu tional style and perceived self-worth.