Expectativas Oscuras: On the Added Burden of Concomitant Negative Problem Orientation and Pessimism in Predicting Depressive Symptoms and Suicidal Behaviors in Latinx Young Adults

Purpose

Optimism and social problem solving were examined as predictors of depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviors in Latinx adults.

Methods

A total of 572 (424 female and 148 male) Latinx college students participated in the present study.

Results

Regression analyses, controlling for sociodemographic factors (e.g., age, sex, immigration status) and past suicide attempts, indicated that optimism accounted for a significant amount of the variance in depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviors. Moreover, the inclusion of social problem solving was found to further augment the prediction model by accounting for additional unique variance in depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviors. Within the social problem-solving set, negative problem orientation was consistently found to be the only significant unique predictor. Finally, an examination for an Optimism × Social Problem Solving interaction effect resulted in identifying a significant Pessimism × Negative Problem Orientation effect in predicting depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviors. Importantly, negative problem orientation was associated with both greater depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviors among those with less than high levels of optimism.

Conclusion

These findings point to the additive and interactive role of negative expectancies, namely, pessimism and negative problem orientation, in accounting for greater depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviors in Latinx adults.