Background and objectives

Depression has been associated with alterations in social functioning. Decoding and understanding others’ mental states and adaptive reasoning are important for social functioning. This study examined theory of mind (ToM) and socio-moral reasoning (SMR) in adolescent girls with and without depression. Within the depression group, we examined associations between relevant clinical features (depression severity, anxiety symptoms and borderline personality traits) and ToM and SMR.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted, whereby 43 adolescent girls (mean age = 16.19, SD = 1.24) meeting full or subthreshold criteria for depression and 40 adolescent girls (mean age = 15.44, SD = 1.24) with no psychiatric diagnosis were recruited. ToM was assessed using the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition; SMR was evaluated via the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level task.

Results

Analyses of covariance indicated that adolescents with depression did not differ from controls in ToM abilities but showed lower socio-maturity scores on the SMR task. This difference disappeared after controlling for the number of words used to justify responses. Amongst adolescents with depression, multiple linear regression analyses revealed that higher levels of borderline personality traits were associated with lower levels of mentalization (ToM task), and more severe depressive symptoms were associated with lower socio-moral maturity stages (SMR task)

Limitations

Directional associations were not studied, and the sample included only girls.

Conclusions

Findings may help to explain clinical heterogeneity in social cognitive functioning observed in individuals with depression.

中文翻译：

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青春期女孩的社会认知与抑郁

背景和目标

抑郁症与社会功能的改变有关。解码和理解他人的心理状态和适应性推理对于社会功能很重要。这项研究检查了患有和不患有抑郁症的少女的心智理论 (ToM) 和社会道德推理 (SMR)。在抑郁组中，我们检查了相关临床特征（抑郁严重程度、焦虑症状和边缘人格特征）与 ToM 和 SMR 之间的关联。

方法

进行了一项横断面研究，招募了 43 名符合抑郁症完全或亚阈值标准的少女（平均年龄 = 16.19，SD =  1.24）和没有精神病诊断的 40 名少女（平均年龄 = 15.44，SD = 1.24）。ToM 使用 Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition 进行评估；SMR 通过社会道德推理能力水平任务进行评估。

结果

协方差分析表明，患有抑郁症的青少年在 ToM 能力方面与对照组没有差异，但在 SMR 任务中表现出较低的社会成熟度得分。在控制了用于证明响应合理性的单词数量后，这种差异就消失了。在患有抑郁症的青少年中，多元线性回归分析表明，较高水平的边缘人格特质与较低水平的心理化（ToM 任务）相关，更严重的抑郁症状与较低的社会道德成熟度阶段（SMR 任务）相关

限制

没有研究定向关联，样本仅包括女孩。

结论

研究结果可能有助于解释在抑郁症患者中观察到的社会认知功能的临床异质性。