Social support seeking and early adolescent depression and anxiety symptoms: The moderating role of rumination.

Abstract

This study examined how social support seeking and rumination interacted to predict depression and anxiety symptoms six months later in early adolescents (N = 118; 11 - 14 yrs at baseline). We expected social support seeking would be more helpful for adolescents engaging in low rather than high levels of rumination. Adolescents self-reported on all measures at baseline, and on depression and anxiety symptoms six months later. Social support seeking predicted fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety at low rumination levels, but lost its adaptive effects as rumination increased. For depression symptoms, social support seeking led to more symptoms at high rumination levels. Results were stronger for emotion-focused than problem-focused support seeking, and for depression compared to anxiety symptoms. These findings suggest that cognitive risk factors like rumination may explain some inconsistencies in previous social support literature, and highlight the importance of a nuanced approach to studying social support seeking.