As females’ depressive symptoms escalate, they may be more sensitive to other social stimuli that might promote drinking. Kelly and colleagues [40] found that depression was among the variables that mediated the relationship between peer drinking and early adolescent drinking, though these analyses were not conducted separately by sex. Other evidence suggests that social learning and alcohol expectancies—which are likely influenced by one’s own drinking experiences as well as by his or her peers—might moderate the relationship between depression and alcohol use during adolescence [41], but again, the authors did not explore whether this effect differs by sex. Biological influences underlying females’ depressive symptoms during this period could differ from those underlying males’ symptoms and weak evidence for this have been shown previously [42]; these factors could be related in turn to females’ liability to misuse alcohol.
