Abstract
Objective
The present study was designed to assess the interplay between depressive cognition, coping‐oriented substance use, and future behavioral disengagement tendencies. Cognitive risk subtypes examined include brooding rumination, attributional bias (internal/stable/global), and dysfunctional attitudes.
Method
Individuals were recruited from outpatient treatment settings and met criteria for a unipolar depressive disorder (N = 70; 66% female; 81% White; M
age = 31; SD
age = 13.2). Participants completed self‐report measures of brooding rumination, attributional style, dysfunctional attitudes, coping‐oriented substance use, and behavioral disengagement tendencies following a 3‐week period.
Results
Brooding rumination, stable attributional style, and dysfunctional attitudes were positively associated with later behavioral disengagement tendencies. Coping‐oriented substance use moderated associations between both internal attributional style, as well as dysfunctional attitudes onto later behavioral disengagement.
Conclusions
With regard to stress‐related avoidance, subsyndromal substance use may play a detrimental role among cognitively vulnerable, depressed outpatients when said drug or alcohol use serves as a means of coping.