Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of older children and adolescents using self-report measures have generally reported associations of low E/PE and high N/NE with depression similar to those in the adult literature (e.g., Lonigan et al. 2003).5 Observational studies of younger children of depressed mothers also indicate that these traits may be associated with risk for depression (Kovacs & Lopez-Duran 2010). For example, in a community sample of 100 three-year-olds, Durbin et al. (2005) reported that children of mothers with a history of mood disorder exhibited low PE in emotion-eliciting laboratory tasks. Importantly, this effect was limited to the affective (positive affect) and motivational (approach/engagement), rather than the interpersonal (sociability), components of PE. Furthermore, low PE at age 3 predicted depressotypic cognition and memory biases at age 7 (Hayden et al. 2006) and parent-reported depressive symptoms at age 10 (Dougherty et al. 2010).
