The primary goal of the current study is to better understand the development of depression by examining factors that may contribute to the development of a cognitive vulnerability to depression. Understanding the development of depression is important given that depression is the second most common psychological disorder, with lifetime prevalence estimates as high as 17.1 percent , and estimates that the economic burden of depression in the United States is $43.7 billion annually. Thus, understanding how vulnerability to depression develops is an important step in targeting interventions to buffer against the development of that vulnerability, thereby reducing the risk of depression onset. In the current study, therefore , the independent, unique, and combined influences of a number of factors hypothesized to contribute to the development of negative attributional styles in children will be examined over a 6-month longitudinal follow-up. These factors will include variables previously identified in longitudinal studies as contributing to the development of children?s and adolescents? attributional styles as well as factors demonstrating cross-sectional relationships with attributional styles but not yet examined longitudinally. In this way, the current study will seek to both integrate and extend previous findings.
