Cognitive vulnerability to comorbidity: Looming cognitive style and depressive cognitive style as synergistic predictors of anxiety and depression symptoms

Background and objectivesBecause anxiety and depression are highly comorbid, it is likely that individuals with co-occurring cognitive vulnerabilities to depression and anxiety will experience more severe symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, no study to date has examined the effects of co-occurring (simultaneous) cognitive vulnerabilities to depression and anxiety on the severity of symptoms.MethodThe present study examines the co-occurring effects of Alloy and Abramson’s (1999) Negative Cognitive Style, a vulnerability to depression, and Riskind’s (2000) looming cognitive style, a vulnerability to anxiety.ResultsResults indicated that those with co-occurring vulnerabilities experience a more severe level of anxiety and depression symptoms.LimitationsThe present study used a measure of symptoms rather than actual clinical diagnoses.ConclusionThese findings address the previously ignored area of cognitive vulnerability to comorbidity. Co-occurring cognitive vulnerabilities to anxiety and depression synergistically confer risk for more severe anxiety and depression symptoms than the individual or additive effects of either vulnerability do alone.

► We examined the effects of co-occurring vulnerabilities to anxiety and depression. ► These vulnerabilities predict higher anxiety and depression symptoms. ► This highlights the importance of studying vulnerabilities when they co-occur.