The Role of Positive Schemas in Child Psychopathology and Resilience

Cognitive models of child psychopathology rarely consider positive schemas in models of risk. This study presents the new Positive Schema Questionnaire (PSQ) for youth, evaluating relations of positive schema themes to depression, anxiety, and resilience. Adolescent boys (n = 84) and girls (n = 88), aged 9–14 (M = 11.44), completed the PSQ, and measures of negative schemas, depression, anxiety, and resilience. Exploratory factor analyses of the PSQ supported a five-factor structure including themes of: Self-Efficacy, Optimism, Trust, Success, and Worthiness. Supporting its discriminant validity, the PSQ predicted additional variance in depression, anxiety, and resilience, beyond that predicted by negative schemas. Furthermore, the content specificity model as envisioned for negative schemas, was found to apply to positive schemas, with themes of Worthiness most predictive of depression and Self-Efficacy most predictive of anxiety and resilience. Findings have implications for incorporating positive schemas into cognitive models of psychopathology.