Emotion rigidity in adolescents prospectively predicts future depressive symptoms assessed via self-report and clinical interview

Adolescence is a critical developmental period marked by an elevated risk for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). To identify individuals at risk, the current study investigated whether emotional rigidity is a prospective predictor of depressive symptoms in adolescence using both self-reported and clinician-rated depression assessments. Adolescents (n=151, aged 12-18) completed self-reported and clinician-rated measures of depressive symptoms at baseline and every 6 months for two years. Additionally, they received one month of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) surveys at baseline, reporting their emotions four times a day. Multilevel vector autoregressive models estimated temporal and contemporaneous density (operationalization of emotion rigidity) of subject-specific networks. Higher temporal and contemporaneous network density, as well as an aggregate density score, predicted greater future depressive symptoms controlling for baseline symptoms, as measured by either participants' self-report or clinician reports. These findings could contribute to early depression prevention by identifying and targeting rigid emotion dynamics in at-risk youth.