Are Depressive Thinking Patterns Contagious?

Depression may be contagious - or at least depressive thinking patterns, that is.

This is what psychological scientists Gerald Haeffel and Jennifer Hames of the University of Notre Dame found in a study published this month by the Association for Psychological Science in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

Knowing that people who view personal hardships or tragedies as something outside of the realm of their control and even a reflection of their own failings, are more vulnerable to depression, the researchers set out to see how such thinking, called "cognitive vulnerability," may be "contagious" during times of major flux.

For this reason the team targeted beginning freshman by pairing 103 randomly selected students as roommates and monitored their moods and behaviors through an online questionnaire designed to measure not only cognitive vulnerability, but stressful life events and depressive symptoms as well. 

Sure enough, when an individual was paired with a roommate with high vulnerable cognitive behavior, they began to exhibit similar thinking patterns. And while there was evidence of change by just three months, those rates doubled just three months later, putting them at risk for significant bouts of depression.

On the other hand, the researchers found that the reverse is also true in that roommates with low initial levels of cognitive vulnerability experienced decreases in their own.

These findings, Haeffel told The Telegraph, "suggest that it may be possible to use an individual's social environment as part of the intervention process" that could be used to facilitate "cognitive change in therapy."

Furthermore, he stressed, was the discovery that cognitive vulnerability is much more flexible than recently believed, able to wax and wane depending on social context.

"This means," he said, "that cognitive vulnerability should be thought of as plastic than immutable."