Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Individuals with depression can engage in aversive interpersonal behaviours, such as excessive reassurance seeking and negative feedback seeking, which can further be associated with problematic social relationships. Excessive reassurance seeking is characterized by repeatedly seeking information about one's worth or lovability, whereas negative feedback seeking is characterized by repeatedly seeking negative information about oneself that confirms one's negative self-views. There have been few studies to date that look at both of these seemingly irreconcilable behaviours and their relation to depression, and research has yet to fully support an integrative model that links the two with depression. This study will further examine the relations between excessive reassurance seeking, negative feedback seeking, and depression, using a clinical sample. Perceived rejection will be examined as a moderator of these relations, and specificity to depression will be investigated, as will be gender differences. By understanding more about the associations between these behaviours and clinical depression, interventions can be developed that are aimed at reducing such problematic behaviours.