The Role of Executive Functioning in Adolescent Rumination and Depression

Research has underscored the importance of adolescence in the development of depression and its associated key risk factors, namely rumination. Recently, there has been an emphasis on exploring the neuropsychological correlates of depression and rumination, including the role of executive functioning (EF). However, research has yet to fully elucidate the relationship among these constructs from a developmental perspective. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between various components of EF, rumination, and depression among a normative sample of adolescents. A secondary aim of this study was to examine whether rumination mediates the relationship between EF and depression. Multiple regression analyses indicated a significant association between perseveration, set-shifting and inhibitory impairments and increased depressive symptomatology. Set-shifting deficits were also associated with higher levels of rumination. Additionally, rumination significantly mediated the relationship between impaired set-shifting and depressive symptoms. These findings add to the limited extant literature examining the associations among these constructs in a non-clinical sample of adolescents. Further, this study is the first to examine the mediating effects of rumination in youth.