We all know that kids can catch infectious childhood illnesses
from each other but who would have thought that depression could
be passed on? Many studies have already revealed that peer group
pressure can influence children and that if a child is
particularly disruptive he or she can influence other children,
but now a recent study has found that depression and anxiety can
be contagious too. The study was run by Rebecca Schwartz-Mette
at the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of
Missouri. A total of 274 same sex friendship pairs were involved
in the study, which took place over a six month period. There
were two separate age groups, younger children from Grades 3 and
5 and adolescents from grades 7 and 9. The kids completed
measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms, co-rumination, and
self disclosure. The researchers found that depression was
contagious amongst them all and anxiety was contagious amongst
girls and older boys. Co-rumination a major factor Further
analysis of the data ide