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. 2013 Apr;170(4):434-41.
doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12050673.

Association between maternal depressogenic cognitive style during pregnancy and offspring cognitive style 18 years later

Rebecca M Pearson  1 , Charles Fernyhough, Richard Bentall, Jonathan Evans, Jon Heron, Carol Joinson, Alan L Stein, Glyn Lewis
Affiliations
Free PMC article

Association between maternal depressogenic cognitive style during pregnancy and offspring cognitive style 18 years later

Rebecca M Pearson et al. Am J Psychiatry. 2013 Apr.
Free PMC article

Abstract

Objective: Understanding the origins of negative cognitive style could provide a means to prevent adult depression. Cognitive style is an important target for intervention because although it is not possible to remove the stress and adversities in people's lives, it may be possible to modify interpretation of such adversities through cognitive style. Children may develop a negative cognitive style through modeling the style of their mothers. However, findings have been inconsistent on the association. The authors tested the hypothesis that there is an independent association between maternal and offspring depressogenic cognitive style.

Method: Data from over 4,000 mothers and children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children cohort study in the United Kingdom were used to investigate the association between maternal depressogenic cognitive style before the offspring's birth and the offspring's depressogenic cognitive style at age 18.

Results: A positive association was observed between maternal and offspring cognitive styles: a one-standard-deviation increase in maternal depressogenic cognitive style score during pregnancy was significantly associated with a mean increase of 0.1 standard deviations in offspring depressogenic cognitive style score at age 18. This effect remained after adjusting for maternal and offspring depression and explained 21% of the association between maternal and offspring depression.

Conclusions: Although the mechanisms remain to be elucidated, the findings are consistent with the idea that a mother's cognitive style (irrespective of her depression status) influences that of her child. This suggests that interventions to improve a mother's cognitive style could help prevent her offspring from developing depression during adulthood.

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Figures

FIGURE 1.
FIGURE 1.. Offspring and Maternal Cognitive Style Items
FIGURE 2.
FIGURE 2.. Theoretical Pathways Linking Maternal Depression and Maternal Cognitive Style With Offspring Cognitive Style and Depressiona
a Analysis based on participants for whom complete data were available (N=2,528). In the diagram, the arrows represent regressions and thus associations between variables. All regression path coefficients are standardized, so all effects sizes are directly comparable. The total association between maternal depression and offspring depression at age 18 was 0.088 (95% CI=0.017–0.159, p=0.014). This total effect comprises all direct and indirect pathways from maternal to offspring depression. This would comprise the direct association before cognitive styles are considered in the model. In contrast, once maternal and child cognitive styles are considered, the direct association drops to 0.070 (p=0.048). The total indirect effect through mother and offspring cognitive styles was 0.019 (95% CI=0.017–0.020, p=0.010), as calculated in Mplus from the product of the indirect pathways in the figure. Thus, 21% (0.019/0.088) of the original total association between maternal and child depression was mediated by mother and child cognitive styles. The model fit indices were good; χ2=0.140, df=1, p=0.708, root mean square error of approximation=0.0, 95% CI=0.00–0.038, comparative fit index=1.0; standard errors and thus confidence intervals of direct and indirect effects were estimated using bootstrapping. The estimator was weighted least squares.
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