Girls' Tendency to Dwell on Sadness Puts Them at Higher Risk for Depression

Girls think more about their sad feelings than boys do, a behavior that could contribute to the fact that they are more likely to suffer depression later on in life, according to a new Florida State University study.

FSU psychology Professor Janet Kistner and former doctoral student Dannah Ziegert developed a children's version of a questionnaire commonly given to adults to assess styles of response to a depressed mood. They then administered the questionnaire to 205 9- to 12-year-old children in fourth and fifth grades.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, found a significant difference between the sexes. While the girls tended to think about their feelings, boys tended to do things to get their mind off their feelings. Gender differences in "response styles theory" have been well documented among adolescents and adults, but the FSU study is among the first to determine if they exist among children.

"We asked them if they get a bad grade or don't get invited to a birthday party do they think about it over and over again or do they run outside and play a game? Girls had a greater tendency to think and think and think about it, and that's a pattern of behavior that could put them at risk for depression," Kistner said.

The response styles theory holds that those who reflect on their symptoms of depression, as well as the causes and consequences of the symptoms, experience more severe and chronic symptoms; those who seek distraction from their feelings experience less intense and acute symptoms. Although true depression is rare in preadolescents, Kistner found there is a connection between a child's tendency to ruminate and the presence of depressive symptoms.

"There's value in reflecting on things that have happened to you, especially to if you do so to gauge your own behavior and think about how you might do things differently in the future," Kistner said. "But there comes a point when you're just spinning it over and over in your mind. The sadness stays with you and your ability to problem-solve goes down."

Ziegert and Kistner's finding that more girls think about their sad feelings than boys do echoes what other researchers have found in adults: Women tend to think about their symptoms more than men do, which may be one reason why they suffer depression at nearly twice the rate of men.

The gender differences in response styles may be traced to the way girls and boys are socialized, Kistner said.

"For girls, it's OK for them to think and talk about their feelings and even express it through crying," she said. "But there are often big negative consequences for boys to cry so they may learn to distract in order to push those emotions away. It's a coping mechanism that girls may not learn."

The findings suggest that perhaps preventive intervention and discussion about coping with problems can be done in elementary schools, Kistner said, explaining that helping kids with their coping styles may help to reduce the rate of depression in adolescence and adulthood. Current research suggests that 15 to 20 percent of adolescents experience major depression, about the same rate as adults.

In the meantime, parents, teachers and counselors are in a position to spot when a child seems to be dwelling on feelings of sadness and can encourage the child to play outside, get involved in an activity or even play a computer game - anything that will require the child to focus on something else for awhile, Kistner said.

An important contribution of the study also is the development of the questionnaire itself, which will be used by other researchers in the future, she said.