Citation

Joiner TE. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 1999; 27(1): 77-85.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee 32306-1270, USA. joiner@psy.fsu.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10197408

Abstract

Coyne's (1976b) interpersonal theory of depression postulated that the combination of depressive symptoms and excessive reassurance-seeking leads to interpersonal problems (e.g., loneliness, devaluation). The present study is one of the first to test this model among youth, particularly a clinical sample of youth. Sixty-eight youth psychiatric inpatients (35 girls; 33 boys; mean age = 13.34 years, SD = 2.50) completed self-report measures of excessive reassurance-seeking, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal rejection.

RESULTS conformed to the hypothesis: The statistical interaction of excessive reassurance-seeking and depressive symptoms predicted interpersonal rejection, such that high-reassurance-seeking youth with depressive symptoms reported the most interpersonal rejection. Implications of the findings for interpersonal theory of depression in youngsters are discussed.

Language: en