According to the Epidemiological Catchment Area Study, the leading risk factor for unipolar depression is being female (see Weissman & Klerman, 1992 for review). Findings such as this have led researchers to recognize that a better understanding of depression is crucial for the health of women and that a better understanding of the lives of women can also inform the field of research on depression. Yet, because targeting depression in women is a relatively recent focus, the majority of studies span time periods of a year or less. The short-term design of these studies has not allowed researchers to adequately understand depressive symptoms from a longitudinal perspective and in the context of women's adult development. The proposed research makes use of the Mills Longitudinal Study, an ongoing study of adult women begun in 1958, with the women studied at ages 21, 27, 43, 52, and 61. The Mills Study consists of a diverse set of data including personality variables, life data, and interview data. A broadband, multi-panel, and multi- method study such as this one can address questions about the development of depressive symptomatology in women that thus far have not been viably researched.
The aims of the applicant's research are as follows: (1) to document the normative trajectory of depressive symptomatology in women across adulthood, (2) to investigate how individual differences in trajectories of depressive symptomatology are influenced by individual differences in trajectories of working models of adult attachment, and (3) to investigate how individual differences in trajectories of depressive symptomatology are influenced by individual differences in emotion regulation strategies.
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