Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada; Research Centre, CHU Sainte-Justine, Montreal, Canada.
Research Centre, CHU Sainte-Justine, Montreal, Canada; Department of Psychiatry and Addictology, Université de Montreal, Montreal, Canada; Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2022 Sep;76:101750. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2022.101750. Epub 2022 Jun 4.
Depression has been associated with alterations in social functioning. Decoding and understanding others' mental states and adaptive reasoning are important for social functioning. This study examined theory of mind (ToM) and socio-moral reasoning (SMR) in adolescent girls with and without depression. Within the depression group, we examined associations between relevant clinical features (depression severity, anxiety symptoms and borderline personality traits) and ToM and SMR.
A cross-sectional study was conducted, whereby 43 adolescent girls (mean age = 16.19, SD = 1.24) meeting full or subthreshold criteria for depression and 40 adolescent girls (mean age = 15.44, SD = 1.24) with no psychiatric diagnosis were recruited. ToM was assessed using the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition; SMR was evaluated via the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level task.
Analyses of covariance indicated that adolescents with depression did not differ from controls in ToM abilities but showed lower socio-maturity scores on the SMR task. This difference disappeared after controlling for the number of words used to justify responses. Amongst adolescents with depression, multiple linear regression analyses revealed that higher levels of borderline personality traits were associated with lower levels of mentalization (ToM task), and more severe depressive symptoms were associated with lower socio-moral maturity stages (SMR task) LIMITATIONS: Directional associations were not studied, and the sample included only girls.
Findings may help to explain clinical heterogeneity in social cognitive functioning observed in individuals with depression.
抑郁与社会功能的改变有关。解读和理解他人的心理状态和适应性推理对于社会功能至关重要。本研究考察了有或无抑郁的青春期女孩的心理理论（ToM）和社会道德推理（SMR）。在抑郁组中，我们考察了相关临床特征（抑郁严重程度、焦虑症状和边缘型人格特质）与 ToM 和 SMR 之间的关联。
进行了一项横断面研究，共招募了 43 名符合抑郁完全或亚阈值标准的青春期女孩（平均年龄 16.19 岁，标准差 1.24）和 40 名无精神科诊断的青春期女孩（平均年龄 15.44 岁，标准差 1.24）。使用电影评估社会认知来评估 ToM；使用社会道德推理能力水平任务评估 SMR。
协方差分析表明，抑郁青少年在 ToM 能力上与对照组无差异，但在 SMR 任务上的社会成熟度得分较低。在控制用于证明反应的单词数量后，这种差异消失了。在抑郁青少年中，多元线性回归分析表明，较高的边缘型人格特质水平与较低的心理化水平（ToM 任务）相关，更严重的抑郁症状与较低的社会道德成熟阶段（SMR 任务）相关。
未研究方向性关联，且样本仅包括女孩。
这些发现可能有助于解释抑郁个体社会认知功能的临床异质性。
