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Based on former research, it can be assumed that attachment relationships provide a context in which children develop both the effortful control (EC) capacity and the repertoire of responses to regulate distress. Both are important to understand children's (mal)adjustment. While the latter assumption has been supported in several studies, less is known about links between attachment and EC. We administered questionnaires to measure anxious and avoidant attachment or trust in maternal support in two samples of early adolescents. EC was reported by the child in Sample 1 (n = 244), and by mother in Sample 2 (n = 177). In both samples, mothers reported children's maladjustment. Consistent with predictions, insecure attachment was related to reduced EC. Moreover, EC indirectly linked insecure attachment to maladjustment. This study provides evidence that studying EC is important to understand the self-regulatory mechanisms explaining the link between attachment and (mal)adjustment in early adolescence.

Recent work examining the content and organization of attachment representations suggests that 1 way in which we represent the attachment relationship is in the form of a cognitive script. This work has largely focused on early childhood or adolescence/adulthood, leaving a large gap in our understanding of script-like attachment representations in the middle childhood period. We present 2 studies and provide 3 critical pieces of evidence regarding the presence of a script-like representation of the attachment relationship in middle childhood. We present evidence that a middle childhood attachment script assessment tapped a stable underlying script using samples drawn from 2 western cultures, the United States (Study 1) and Belgium (Study 2). We also found evidence suggestive of the intergenerational transmission of secure base script knowledge (Study 1) and relations between secure base script knowledge and symptoms of psychopathology in middle childhood (Study 2). The results from this investigation represent an important downward extension of the secure base script construct.

Maternal support is known as a protective factor during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. However, less is known about the conditions leading to support-seeking behaviors toward mothers in early adolescence. In comparison with younger children, it is assumed that the specific nature of these conditions changes with continuing cognitive maturation. To shed light on the normative development of attachment-related behaviors beyond infancy and, more specifically, on the activating conditions for support seeking, 98 early adolescents were instructed to write about a distressing situation during which they needed their mother's support. Seven distressing conditions could be derived from the current data. Two not previously described age-relevant conditions, academic failure and social conflict, were identified. Notably, 62% of the reported conditions referred to situations Bowlby (1969/1982) originally proposed, empirically confirming the importance of these conditions in early adolescence.

For a long time, associations between temperamental reactivity, emotion regulation (ER) strategies, and depression in youth were studied with a primary focus on the adverse impact of the negative emotionality (NE) temperament dimension and maladaptive ER strategies. The current study aims to answer the question whether positive emotionality (PE) and adaptive ER strategies also play a role in these associations. In a convenience sample of 176 youth (9-18 years; M = 13.58, SD = .94) data were obtained on NE and PE, the use of both maladaptive and adaptive ER strategies, and depressive symptoms. Results indicate that higher levels of NE and lower levels of PE were both associated with more depressive symptoms. Additionally, we found the interaction of NE and PE to be significantly related to depressive symptoms, with lower levels of PE being a vulnerability factor, facilitating the relationship between higher levels of NE and symptoms. Third, higher levels of NE were associated with the use of more maladaptive ER strategies, but were unrelated to adaptive ER strategies. There was no association between PE, and either maladaptive or adaptive ER strategies. Fourth, higher levels of maladaptive ER strategies, and lower levels of adaptive ER strategies were both associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Finally, no evidence was found for the mediation of ER strategies in the relationship between temperamental reactivity and depressive symptoms. Current study findings underline the need of identifying resilience factors for depression in youth. Insight into such factors is pivotal for the successful development and implementation of prevention and intervention programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive theory is a prominent framework to study depression in both adults and adolescents. This theory stated that dysfunctional schemas are moderators (known as diathesis) in the association of current stress and psychopathology. However, in adolescents, less evidence has been found so far to corroborate the importance of these schemas. This study aimed to investigate in a cross-sectional design the moderating role of adolescents' early maladaptive schemas (EMS) on depressive symptoms. This will be studied in relation to both important daily stressors (i.e., maternal, paternal and peer rejection) and stressful life events. METHOD Adolescents ( N = 228, age 12-18 years), selected from inpatient and outpatient clinical settings and a non-referred sample, completed questionnaires and interviews measuring psychopathology, cognitive schemas, peer rejection, maternal and paternal rejection, and stressful life events. Parents completed questionnaires about their adolescent measuring psychopathology, stressful life events and peer rejection, as well as their own parental behaviour. RESULTS Correlational analyses revealed significant associations between the study variables. Evidence was found for an interaction effect between the adolescents' EMS and peer rejection in explaining depressive symptoms, but only in late adolescents. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Message Stress induced by maternal and, in lesser extent, paternal rejection is contributing to depressive symptoms primarily in younger and to lesser extent in older age groups., The quality of peer relationships becomes an increasingly salient source of distress as adolescence unfolds and is certainly an important mechanism affecting depression in adolescence., Maladaptive schemas only start functioning as a cognitive diathesis in late adolescence, increasing depression in response to peer-related distress., Since maladaptive schemas are not yet operating as cognitive vulnerability factors in early and middle adolescence, early interventions for depressive disorders may be more effective compared with treatment in later adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]