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Generation of life events in bipolar spectrum disorders: A re‐examination and extension of the stress generation theory
Author(s) -
Bender Rachel E.,
Alloy Lauren B.,
Sylvia Louisa G.,
Uroševic Snezana,
Abramson Lyn Y.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.20705
Subject(s) - psychology , depression (economics) , bipolar disorder , clinical psychology , stress (linguistics) , event (particle physics) , developmental psychology , psychiatry , cognition , linguistics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , economics , macroeconomics
The extent to which stress generation occurs in bipolar spectrum disorders (BSD) is not well understood. The present study examined whether 75 BSD participants experienced elevated rates of behavior‐dependent life events, as compared with 38 normal control participants. Within the BSD group, we also examined whether depressive or hypomanic symptoms prospectively predicted increases in various types of negative and positive life events. Results indicated that BSD participants experienced overall increases in behavior‐dependent events over the follow‐up, as compared with normal controls. At the symptom level, the event generation process occurred in more specific event domains. Results suggest that the stress generation theory of unipolar depression can be extended to BSD and that the type of generated events may be polarity‐specific. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: 66: 1–20, 2010.