Date of Award
2012
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
Abstract
The first year of college can be a stressful experience that can lead to depressive symptoms in emerging adults. Due to the significant impairments that are associated with depressive symptoms across the lifespan, it is important to understand the elements of the first-year college experience that contribute to depressive affect. The goals of the current prospective study are to examine sex differences in the relationship between life stressors (i.e., social and achievement stressors) and cognitive avoidance coping in the development of depressive symptoms in first-year college students. The findings suggest that although cognitive avoidance is predictive of more depression, there are no significant differences in the effect of cognitive avoidance between genders. Additionally, cognitive avoidance does not moderate the relationship between social and achievement stressors for males or females. Future research may aim to determine how cognitive avoidance contributes to negative affect and how cognitive styles have a role in the cognitive avoidance to depression relationship.
Recommended Citation
Dickson, Daniel, "Gender Differences in Depressive Symptoms: The Interaction of Cognitive Avoidance Coping and Specific Stressor Domains During Freshmen Adaptation to College" (2012). Master's Theses. 718.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/718
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2012 Daniel Dickson
