News and Events

“The Future of Longitudinal Studies:
What we know; What we don’t know; What we need to know”

The Reciprocal Relation Between Studies Of Health/Normality And Illness/Psychopathology
Chaired by Stephen Hinshaw, University of California, Berkeley
Friday, March 21, 2003

Meg Jay and Oliver John
"Studying the Life Course of Depressive Symptoms in Samples of Normal Women "
University of California, Berkeley

Most studies examining depression in women have been cross-sectional or shorter-term. Findings from these studies revealed that younger women (in their 20’s) are more likely to experience depression than older women (up to their 60’s). The goal of the present investigation was to understand depressive symptoms from a longitudinal perspective, and in the context of women’s adult development. This study used data from the Mills Longitudinal Study of Women, which followed a cohort of women from the time they were about to graduate from Mills College in 1958 for over 40 years. Results suggested that depressive symptoms are rated highest when women are in their 20’s, and then decline in a normative trajectory through age 60. However, there are significant differences in the individual trajectories of depressive symptoms. Several possibilities have been proposed (and currently are being tested) to understand what happens for women during the course of development that may relate to depressive symptoms: (a) changes in the number and nature of social roles (e.g., conflicting roles in the home and at work); (b) changes in stressors (e.g., relationship conflicts); (c) learning from experience, through both intrapsychic factors (e.g., better emotion regulation) and interpersonal factors (e.g., increases in attachment security and relationship satisfaction).

Advantages of this study include: collecting a diverse set of data; studying a small number of people in depth; using a multi-method strategy; examining antecedents of depressive symptoms; documenting relationships among psychopathology and social roles. Limitations of this study include: measuring psychopathology in terms of “subclinical” levels; sampling was limited in terms of representativeness; cohort effects were present (e.g., emerging opportunities and changes due to the women’s movement); inability to draw causal inferences (although it is possible to determine the direction of effects).

Oliver John's presentation "Studying the Life Course of Depressive Symptoms in Samples of Normal Women " can be viewed in PDF format, using Adobe® Acrobat® Reader®.