Reducing the mental health impact of economic difficulty and resource scarcity: targeting cognitive style as a moderator between economic stress and depressive symptoms

Depression greatly impacts society as one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in the world, disproportionately impacting people in lower income groups. Past research has identified a strong relationship between economic stress and depression. Yet, little research has explored this relationship from a cognitive perspective. Using the hopelessness theory of depression and social comparison theory in conjunction, this study aimed to investigate the interaction between subjective social status (SSS), a key social determinant of health, and negative cognitive style (NCS) on depressive symptoms. A diverse group of community college students (N = 216) were recruited and answered questions about their SSS, NCS, and depressive symptoms. As predicted, linear regression analyses showed a significant interaction between SSS and NCS. Specifically, a significant positive relationship between SSS and depressive symptoms emerged at moderate and high levels of NCS, whereas no significant relationship was found for those reporting low levels of NCS. However, contrary to our predictions and past theoretical work, results revealed a main effect of NCS on depressive symptoms, but not a main effect of SSS. Taken together, these findings and previous research may suggest NCS as a unique predictor of depressive symptoms regardless of economic stress experience. This study underscores the relevance of NCS in depression research and treatment and forwards a broadened understanding of the impact of social determinants of health on depression, while providing further support for hopelessness theory. Implications for both research and practice are discussed in relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDG1and SDG10.