Poster #60 - Reward Reactivity as a Protective Factor Against Internalizing Psychopathology in Female Adolescents Following Stress Exposure

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Background: Exposure to stressful life events (SLEs) is strongly associated with internalizing psychopathology among adolescents (Hammen, 2005). Identifying factors that buffer youth from internalizing psychopathology following SLEs is needed to improve interventions. Previous research suggests that elevated reactivity to rewarding stimuli may protect against depression following SLEs (Dennison et al., 2016). However, most prior research has focused on severe types of SLEs (e.g., child maltreatment) and the association of reward reactivity (RR) on the between-person association of SLEs with depression (i.e., comparing levels of depression as a function of RR in youth with high SLE exposure to those without). These gaps were addressed by investigating whether RR protects youth from internalizing symptoms following multiple forms of between-person and within-person differences in normative stress.
Method: A sample of 30 female adolescents (aged 15-17 years) completed monthly measures of exposure to SLEs and symptoms of depression and anxiety for one year (360 total assessments). At the first assessment, participants completed a monetary incentive delay task (Knuston et al., 2000) to assess RR. We operationalized RR as the difference in reaction time to high- and low-reward trials relative to no-reward trials. Exposure to SLEs was assessed using the UCLA Life Stress Interview, a gold-standard interview-based approach that assesses chronic and episodic SLEs across multiple domains (e.g., peer, family, academic) with SLE severity objectively coded by trained team members. Participants also completed the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) (Cohen et al., 1983) to assess perceptions of stress. Multi-level modeling was used to evaluate whether RR moderated the association of SLEs with depression and anxiety using between-person (i.e., for adolescents with higher average levels of SLEs) and within-person (i.e., on months when adolescents had more SLEs than was typical for them) approaches.
Results: Main effects of between- and within-person perceived, chronic and episodic stress were associated with elevations in monthly depression and anxiety symptoms (ps<.01). RR moderated the association between perceived stress and depression (b=-.19, p=.03), such that higher between-person perceived stress was strongly associated with depression among adolescents with low and moderate RR, but was not associated with depression among those with high RR (Figure 1). RR also moderated the between-person association of episodic stress and anxiety (b=-2.02, p=.03). Higher average levels of episodic stress were strongly associated with anxiety among adolescents with low RR, but were less associated with anxiety among those with moderate to high RR (Figure 2). No moderation was found between RR and chronic stress to predict psychopathology.
Conclusion: Our findings indicate that increased reactivity to rewarding stimuli may be a protective factor against internalizing symptoms following SLEs. We found that high RR was associated with lower levels of depression for girls with high perceived stress and lower levels of anxiety for girls with high exposure to episodic stressors. These findings suggest that interventions targeting reward processing, such as behavioral activation, may be an effective approach in the prevention and treatment of internalizing psychopathology, particularly for adolescents who are experiencing high levels of stress.

Authors

• Elizabeth A. McNeilly, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Jessica Jenness, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie McLaughlin, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author