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Depressed Adolescents’ Pupillary Response to Peer Acceptance and Rejection: The Role of Rumination

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Abstract

Heightened emotional reactivity to peer feedback is predictive of adolescents’ depression risk. Examining variation in emotional reactivity within currently depressed adolescents may identify subgroups that struggle the most with these daily interactions. We tested whether trait rumination, which amplifies emotional reactions, explained variance in depressed adolescents’ physiological reactivity to peer feedback, hypothesizing that rumination would be associated with greater pupillary response to peer rejection and diminished response to peer acceptance. Twenty currently depressed adolescents (12–17) completed a virtual peer interaction paradigm where they received fictitious rejection and acceptance feedback. Pupillary response provided a time-sensitive index of physiological arousal. Rumination was associated with greater initial pupil dilation to both peer rejection and acceptance, and diminished late pupillary response to peer acceptance trials only. Results indicate that depressed adolescents high on trait rumination are more reactive to social feedback regardless of valence, but fail to sustain cognitive-affective load on positive feedback.

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Notes

  1. Analyses were rerun: (1) removing the two subjects on SSRI’s (n = 18) (2) removing the subject who reported suspicion (n = 19), and (3) covarying for gender and age. The magnitude of the associations found between rumination and pupillary response did not significantly differ after considering these multiple sources of influence.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by National Institute of Drug Abuse Grant R21DA024144 (J.S.S./R.E.D., PI’s), the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh (NIH/NCRR/CTSA Grant UL1 RR024153) and the National Institute of Mental Health intramural research program. Dr. Jones is supported by MH086811.The authors are grateful to Daniel Pine, MD for his input and assistance on this project; Marcie Walker, Katie Burkhouse and Karen Garelik for their assistance in data acquisition; Harvey Iwamoto for task related computer programming; and Ruth Stroud and Jennifer Sears for their assistance with photography. We also thank the participants and their families.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3811 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Lindsey B. Stone, Jennifer S. Silk, Greg J. Siegle, Kyung Hwa Lee & Neil P. Jones

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Jennifer S. Silk & Greg J. Siegle

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown Medical School, Providence, RI, USA

    Laura R. Stroud

  4. Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Eric E. Nelson

  5. School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Ronald E. Dahl

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  1. Lindsey B. Stone
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Correspondence to Lindsey B. Stone.

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Stone, L.B., Silk, J.S., Siegle, G.J. et al. Depressed Adolescents’ Pupillary Response to Peer Acceptance and Rejection: The Role of Rumination. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 47, 397–406 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-015-0574-7

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