Leiden University Student Repository

Guven, Ayse Ekin (2022)

Negative Attention Bias and Its Links to Depressive Symptoms in Children and Their Parents

Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)

Negative Attention Bias (NAB) is suggested to have evolutionary functions; however, there is evidence that it also plays a role in the onset and maintenance of depression. Previous studies investigating NAB and its links to depression were mainly conducted with clinical and at-risk adolescent and adult samples. Results of previous studies indicated depressed or at-risk individuals present NAB specifically towards depression-congruent stimuli (e.g., sad faces). This study is the first to investigate NAB and its links to depressive symptoms in non-clinical children. Moreover, the link between parental depressive symptoms and NAB in children was also investigated. In line with the previous studies, it was hypothesized children, like adults, will show NAB towards negative over positive emotional stimuli; children who have higher levels of depression will attend longer to sad faces in specific; children whose parents have higher levels of depression will attend longer to sad faces in...Show moreNegative Attention Bias (NAB) is suggested to have evolutionary functions; however, there is evidence that it also plays a role in the onset and maintenance of depression. Previous studies investigating NAB and its links to depression were mainly conducted with clinical and at-risk adolescent and adult samples. Results of previous studies indicated depressed or at-risk individuals present NAB specifically towards depression-congruent stimuli (e.g., sad faces). This study is the first to investigate NAB and its links to depressive symptoms in non-clinical children. Moreover, the link between parental depressive symptoms and NAB in children was also investigated. In line with the previous studies, it was hypothesized children, like adults, will show NAB towards negative over positive emotional stimuli; children who have higher levels of depression will attend longer to sad faces in specific; children whose parents have higher levels of depression will attend longer to sad faces in specific. In a cross-sectional design, 90 8–12-year-old children and 84 parents (44 mothers) were tested. Children and parents’ dwell times to positive (happy) compared to negative (angry, fearful, sad) emotional expressions were measured using an eye-tracking task. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) for children and the Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) for parents. While only one parent contributed to the eye-tracking task, both parents were asked to fill out the BDI. Results indicated although parents compared to children attended longer to all emotional expressions, both children and their parents attended longer to negative compared to positive emotions. No link between child depressive symptoms or parental depressive symptoms with NAB specific to sad faces was found in children. We conclude that children, like adults, show a negativity bias in their attention to emotional expressions; however, suggested links between child and parent depressive symptoms with NAB may not hold in non-clinical child samples. This study adds to the growing research on emotion-processing and vulnerability to depression in children.Show less

attention bias, emotion-processing, depression, eye-tracking

Author

Guven, Ayse Ekin

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Clinical and Health Psychology

Supervisors

Aktar, E.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en