Excessive reassurance seeking: Delineating a risk factor involved in the development of depressive symptoms

Sir studies investigated (a) the construct validity of reassurance seeking and (b) reassurance seeking as a specific vulnerability factor for depressive symptoms. Studies I and 2 demonstrated that reassurance seeking is a reasonably cohesive, replicable, and valid construct, discernible from. related interpersonal variables. Study 3 demonstrated that reassurance seeking displayed diagnostic specificity to depression, whereas other interpersonal variables did not, in a sample of clinically, diagnosed participants. Study 4 prospectively assessed a group of initially symptom free participants, and showed that those who developed fixture depressive symptoms (as compared with those who remained symptom free) obtained elevated reassurance-seeking scores at baseline, when all participants were symptom free, but did not obtain elevated scores on other interpersonal variables. Studies 5 and 6 indicate that reassurance seeking predicts fixture depressive reactions to stress. Taken together, the six studies support the construct validity of reassurance seeking, as well as its potential role as a specific vulnerability factor for depression.