Low-end specificity of childhood measures of emotional distress: Consistent effects for anxiety and depressive symptoms in a nonclinical population

Previous research regarding the low-end specificity of self-report measures of affective distress in children suggests that defensiveness acts differe ntially to lower scores on self-report measures of depressive symptoms, but not on self-report measures of anxiety. This investigation examined this i ssue in a nonclinical sample of 442 children, ages 7 to 16. Participants co mpleted measures of depressive symptoms (Children's Depression Inventory), anxiety symptoms (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children) and defensive ness (Children's Social Desirability Scale). In contrast to previous resear ch, the results in this study indicated similar effects of defensiveness on measures of depressive symptoms and anxiety. Low-end depression participan ts obtained significantly higher defensiveness scores, as did low-end anxio us participants. In an attempt to circumvent the effects of defensiveness, we measured anhedonia (Pleasure Scale for Children, or PSC) as a proxy of d epressive symptoms. We also found the PSC to be subject to the effects of d efensiveness at approximately the same magnitude as the measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms.