An integrative model of excessive reassurance seeking and negative feedback seeking in the development and maintenance of depression

Depression and interpersonal dysfunction are inextricably linked. Interpersonal behaviors in individuals with depression, specifically excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) and negative feedback seeking (NFS), have recently emerged as possible risk factors for interpersonal rejection and future depression. However, existing models integrating ERS and NFS in individuals with depression lack empirical support and fail to provide an adequate explanation for the negative social and psychological consequences that concurrent ERS and NFS create. The proposed model, based on the bias and accuracy literature in close relationships, suggests that individuals with depression desire and elicit global enhancement (through ERS) and specific verification (through NFS) from close others. This model has strong theoretical and empirical foundations and suggests that depression chronicity and interpersonal distress stem from the influence that early core-beliefs about relationships and self-views have on the seemingly adaptive combination of global enhancement and specific verification.

► ERS and NFS have emerged as possible risk factors for rejection and depression.
► We review the empirical and conceptual literature on ERS and NFS in depression.
► We discuss extant theoretical models integrating ERS and NFS and their limitations.
► We advance a model accounting for the co-occurrence of ERS and NFS in depression.
► Early core-beliefs and self-views play an important role in the proposed model.