Hards Emily, Orchard Faith, Reynolds Shirley
Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Sussex, UK.
Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2023 Nov 8;17(1):126. doi: 10.1186/s13034-023-00661-4.
Although self-evaluation i.e., negative perceptions of the self is a common depression symptom in adolescents, little is known about how this population spontaneously describe their self and available data on adolescent self-evaluation is limited. This study aimed to generate and report on a list of words used by healthy adolescents and those with elevated depression symptoms to describe their self-evaluation. Linguistic analysis (LIWC) was then used to compare self-evaluation between the two groups.
Adolescents aged 13-18 years (n = 549) completed a measure of depression symptoms (the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire) and a measure of self-evaluation (the Twenty Statements Test). Responses were then collated and presented in a freely accessible resource and coded using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) analysis.
Self-evaluation words generated by adolescents were uploaded to a publicly accessible site for future research: https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-01234 . Adolescents with elevated depression symptoms described themselves as 'Tired' and 'Sad' more than healthy adolescents. However, there was no difference between groups in respect to their use of specific positive, prosocial self-evaluation 'words' (i.e., 'Caring' and 'Kind). Following Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) analysis, adolescents with elevated depression symptoms generated significantly more words than healthy adolescents, generated more words classified as negative emotion, anxiety and sadness and generated fewer words classified positive emotion than healthy adolescents.
As predicted by the cognitive model of depression, our findings suggest that adolescents with elevated symptoms of depression generated more negative self-evaluation words than healthy adolescents; however they also generated prosocial positive self-evaluation words at the same rate as non-depressed adolescents. These novel data therefore identify an 'island' of resilience that could be targeted and amplified by psychological treatments for adolescent depression, and thus provide an additional technique of change.
尽管自我评估，即对自我的负面认知，是青少年常见的抑郁症状，但对于这一群体如何自发地描述自己，人们知之甚少，而且关于青少年自我评估的现有数据也很有限。本研究旨在生成并报告健康青少年和抑郁症状较高的青少年用来描述自我评估的词汇列表。然后使用语言分析（LIWC）来比较两组之间的自我评估。
13至18岁的青少年（n = 549）完成了一项抑郁症状测量（情绪与感受问卷）和一项自我评估测量（二十陈述测验）。然后对回答进行整理，并呈现在一个可免费访问的资源中，并使用语言查询词频统计（LIWC）分析进行编码。
青少年生成的自我评估词汇已上传到一个可公开访问的网站以供未来研究：https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-01234 。抑郁症状较高的青少年比健康青少年更多地将自己描述为“疲惫”和“悲伤”。然而，两组在使用特定的积极、亲社会自我评估“词汇”（即“有爱心”和“善良”）方面没有差异。经过语言查询词频统计（LIWC）分析，抑郁症状较高的青少年生成的词汇比健康青少年显著更多，生成的被归类为负面情绪、焦虑和悲伤的词汇更多，而生成的被归类为积极情绪的词汇比健康青少年更少。
正如抑郁认知模型所预测的那样，我们的研究结果表明，抑郁症状较高的青少年比健康青少年生成了更多的负面自我评估词汇；然而，他们生成亲社会积极自我评估词汇的速度与非抑郁青少年相同。因此，这些新数据确定了一个恢复力“孤岛”，可以通过青少年抑郁症的心理治疗来靶向和增强，从而提供一种额外的改变技术。
