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The interpersonal--psychological theory of suicidal behavior (T. E. Joiner, 2005) makes 2 overarching predictions: (a) that perceptions of burdening others and of social alienation combine to instill the desire for death and (b) that individuals will not act on the desire for death unless they have developed the capability to do so. This capability develops through exposure and thus habituation to painful and/or fearsome experiences and is posited by the theory to be necessary for overcoming powerful self-preservation pressures. Two studies tested these predictions. In Study 1, the interaction of (low) family social support (cf. social alienation or low belonging) and feeling that one does not matter (cf. perceived burdensomeness) predicted current suicidal ideation, beyond depression indices. In Study 2, the 3-way interaction among a measure of low belonging, a measure of perceived burdensomeness, and lifetime number of suicide attempts (viewed as a strong predictor of the level of acquired capability for suicide) predicted current suicide attempt (vs. ideation) among a clinical sample of suicidal young adults, again beyond depression indices and other key covariates. Implications for the understanding, treatment, and prevention of suicidal behavior are discussed. Keywords: suicide, interpersonal--psychological theory, suicidal desire, suicidal capability, belongingnesss

The emotional cascade model proposes that the emotional and behavioral dysregulation of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) may be fundamentally linked through emotional cascades, vicious cycles of intense rumination and negative affect that may induce aversive emotional states. In order to reduce this aversive emotion, dysregulated behaviors such as non-suicidal self-injury may then be used as distractions from intense rumination. This study explored emotional cascades in a sample enriched with participants meeting diagnostic criteria for BPD. The first part of the study explored a structural equation model that examined the mediational effects of emotional cascades on the relationship between BPD symptoms and dysregulated behavior and found evidence for full mediation, even after controlling for symptoms of depression and other Cluster B disorders. The second part of the study examined the effects of a rumination induction conducted with the intention of eliciting emotional cascades in those diagnosed with BPD. The results demonstrated that individuals with BPD experienced greater reactivity and intensity of negative affect, but not of positive affect, following the procedure--even when controlling for current depressive symptoms. Future directions and clinical implications for the emotional cascade model are discussed. Keywords: borderline personality disorder, emotion regulation, rumination, suicide attempts, binge eating

The article describes a 20-year longitudinal study of body weight, dieting, and disordered eating in women and men. Body weight increased significantly over time in both women and men. However, women's weight perception and dieting frequency decreased over time, whereas men's weight perception and dieting frequency increased, and disordered eating declined more in women than in men from late adolescence to midlife. In both women and men, changes in weight perception and dieting frequency were associated with changes in disordered eating. In addition, adult roles such as marriage and parenthood were associated with significant decreases in disordered eating from late adolescence to midlife in women, whereas few associations were observed in men. Despite different developmental trajectories, women demonstrated more weight dissatisfaction, dieting, and disordered eating compared with men across the period of observation. Keywords: eating disorders, bulimia, longitudinal study, gender differences, dieting

T. E. Joiner's (2004, in press) theory of suicidal behavior suggests that past suicidal behavior plays an important role in future suicidality. However, the mechanism by which this risk is transferred and the causal implications have not been well studied. The current study provides evaluation of the nature and limits of this relationship across 4 populations, with varying degrees of suicidal behavior. Across settings, age groups, and impairment levels, the association between past suicidal behavior and current suicidal symptoms held, even when controlling for strong covariates like hopelessness and symptoms of various Axis I and II syndromes. Results provide additional support for the importance of past suicidality as a substantive risk factor for later suicidal behavior. Keywords: Joiner's theory, past, future, suicidal behavior

Data from the Oregon Adolescent Depression Project were used to examine the symptomatic expression of major depressive disorder (MDD) as a function of age and gender. The objective was to investigate the phenomenological nature of MDD among a cohort of adolescents as they progressed into early adulthood. The analyses were based on 564 participants who had experienced MDD in their lifetime. No systematic differences in the relative rate of occurrence of specific symptoms across episodes and only minor symptom differences between male and female participants were found. Age did not significantly influence the symptom picture. Stability of specific symptoms and episode severity across episodes was low. The results are discussed within the context of a stressor-symptom matching model.

An interactive model of perfectionism, perceived weight status, and self-esteem was tested on 342 female undergraduates to predict bulimic symptoms. Using a longitudinal design, the authors tested the model on data collected at 2 points: the spring of participants' senior year of high school and during participants' first year of college. The authors hypothesized and found that self-esteem moderates the interaction between perfectionism and perceived weight status in predicting bulimic symptoms. Women who are high in perfectionism and who consider themselves overweight exhibit bulimic symptoms only if they have low self-esteem (i.e., if they doubt they can attain their high body standards). High self-esteem women with the same diathesis-stress conditions are less likely to exhibit bulimic symptoms. These findings clarify the role of perfectionism in bulimic symptomatology.

Physiological hyperarousal (PH) is an understudied component of the tripartite model of depression and anxiety. This study contributes to the literature on PH, the tripartite model, and anxiety and its disorders, using data from psychotherapy outpatients (n = 2,448), air force cadets (n = 1,335), and undergraduates (n = 284). Psychometrics and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that PH is a reliable, cohesive, discriminable, and valid construct. Compared with subjective anxiety, PH was more associated to panic versus mood disordered status, and to panic versus generalized anxiety disordered status. As hypothesized, an aspect of anxiety sensitivity (i.e., fear of body sensations) was particularly related to subjective anxiety in the presence of PH. Results support the PH construct as replicable, valid, and clinically important and support the utility of the tripartite and related models for understanding the relation of depressive and anxious syndromes.

The authors hypothesized that excessive reassurance-seeking would prospectively predict changes in depressive symptoms, even controlling for changes in anxious symptoms, and would not predict changes in anxious symptoms controlling for changes in depressive symptoms. This prediction was supported in a study of 1,005 air force cadets. Participants completed measures of excessive reassurance-seeking and depressive and anxious symptoms before basic training, and completed symptom measures again following basic training. This study, together with others, demonstrates that excessive reassurance-seeking is an important depression-related variable that deserves serious attention as a potential vulnerability factor.

According to self-verification theory (e.g., W.B. Swann, 1983), people are motivated to preserve stable self-concepts by seeking self-confirming interpersonal responses, even if the responses are negative. In the current study of 72 youth psychiatric inpatients (36 boys; 36 girls; ages 7-17, M = 13.18; SD = 2.59), the authors provide the 1st test of self-verification theory among a youth sample. Participants completed self-report questionnaires on depression, self-esteem, anxiety, negative and positive affect, and interest in negative feedback from others. The authors made chart diagnoses available, and they collected peer rejection ratings. Consistent with hypotheses, the authors found that interest in negative feedback was associated with depression, was predictive of peer rejection (but only within relatively longer peer relationships), was more highly related to cognitive than emotional aspects of depression, and was specifically associated with depression, rather than being generally associated with emotional distress. The authors discuss implications for self-verification theory and for the phenomenology of youth depression.

Interpersonal approaches to depression are surveyed; it is suggested that interpersonal inhibition, as opposed to interpersonal excess, has been underemphasized as an antecedent of depression. It is proposed that shyness is a vulnerability factor for depressive symptoms in the absence but not in the presence of social support and that loneliness mediates the relation between shyness and depressive symptom increases. Undergraduates (N = 172) reported on their levels of shyness, social support, loneliness, positive and negative affect, and depressive symptoms, and returned 5 weeks later to complete a similar set of assessments. Results supported hypotheses. Participants who were shy and unsupported were likely to experience increases in depressive symptoms and decreases in positive affect, whereas other students were not. This effect was partially mediated by increases in loneliness and was specific to depressive symptoms and low positive affect; it did not apply to negative affect.

The authors conducted the 1st large-sample factor-analytic study of the Modified Scale for Suicidal Ideation (MSSI; I. W. Miller, W. H. Norman, S. B. Bishop, & M. G. Dow, 1986) on a sample of 330 suicidal young adults. Factor analyses revealed 2 MSSI factors: Suicidal Desire and Ideation (ongoing thoughts or desires about suicide) and Resolved Plans and Preparation (intense thoughts, plans, and courage and capability to commit suicide). The Resolved Plans and Preparation factor was more related to Attempt versus Ideator status than was the Suicidal Desire and Ideation factor. The Suicidal Desire and Ideation factor was more highly related to depressotypic indicators than was the other factor, suggesting that level of depression, although predictive of ideation, may not be as strong a correlate of preparation. Comparison of depression- and anxiety-related diagnostic groups on the MSSI factors revealed little difference, consistent with previous work highlighting the occurrence of suicidality across diagnostic groups. These findings have implications for the structure of suicidality, as well as its clinical assessment.

The relationships among suicide ideators, attempters, and multiple attempters were explored in 332 psychiatric patients referred specifically for suicidal ideation or behavior. Previous researchers have subsumed multiple attempters under the general category of attempters. However, comparisons across a range of variables, including Axis I diagnoses from the revised 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) depressive and anxiety symptoms, suicidal ideation, hopelessness, problem solving, and a range of personality features revealed that multiple attempters presented a more severe clinical picture and, accordingly, elevated suicide risk compared with attempters and ideators. Observed differences between groups were maintained when attempters with 'questionable intent' (i.e.; those making equivocal attempts) were excluded from the analyses.

The tripartite model of depression and anxiety suggests that depression and anxiety have shared (generalized negative affect) and specific (anhedonia and physiological hyperarousal) components. In one of the 1st studies to examine the structure of mood-related symptoms in youngsters, this model was tested among 116 child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients, ages 8-16 (M = 12.46; SD = 2.33). Consistent with the tripartite model, a 3-factor (Depression, Anxiety, and Negative Affect) model represented the observed data well. Follow-up analyses suggested that a nonhierarchical arrangement of the 3 factors may be preferable to a hierarchical one.

The naturalistic 'roommate methodology' was used to determine whether individuals who solicit and receive negative feedback are more likely to exhibit more symptoms of depression than others. Results generally confirmed the hypothesis. In addition, results revealed that negative feedback or roommate rejection alone failed to elicit an increase in symptoms. Instead, it was only when both factors were combined that the rate of depressed symptoms rose.

We tested the hopelessness and self-esteem theories of depression and an integration of the two by examining whether a stable, global attributional style (attributional diathesis) and low self-esteem interacted with the outcomes students received on a midterm examination to predict their subsequent depressive reactions over the course of 5 days. Students' immediate depressive reactions (on receipt of grades) were predicted solely by the examination outcome, whereas their enduring depressive reactions during the following 4 days were predicted by the Attributional Diathesis X Low Self-Esteem X Failure interaction. The results also indicated that the three-way interaction predicted enduring depressive reactions through the mediating role of hopelessness.

To test Coyne's (1976b) theory of depression, student's levels of depressive symptoms, reassurance seeking, and self-esteem were assessed at Time 1, and their same-gender roommates' appraisals of them were assessed 5 weeks later. Mildly depressed students engaged in the type of reassurance seeking described by Coyne. Among men, but not women, mildly depressed students were rejected if they strongly sought reassurance and had low self-esteem but not if they did not seek reassurance or had high self-esteem. Although induction of depressed symptoms in roommates did occur, this contagion effect did not account for the depression-rejection relationship. The prediction that unsupportive, intolerant, or unemphatic others would be particularly likely to respond with rejection to reassurance-seeking depressed students with low self-esteem received partial support. Implications for future work on the interpersonal aspects of depression are discussed.