The relationship between different components of executive function and depression in Chinese adolescents: Sequential mediation involving rumination

The outbreak of COVID-19 had a widely negative effect on adolescents’ mental health, especially depression. Previous researches have focused mostly on the impairment of cold executive function in depressed patients, rarely including the underlying mechanism of executive function on depression from a developmental view. Therefore, in the current study, we examined the effect of executive function on Chinese adolescents’ depression, particularly the relationship between cold and hot executive functions, as well as the role of rumination. 500 Chinese 12 to 15-year-old adolescents completed questionnaires on depression and rumination. Besides, we used experimental tasks of Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Word-Face Stroop Test to assess their cold and hot executive functions, respectively. Finally, we used structural equation model to test the relationship between the four. The results showed that both cold and hot executive functions negatively predict depression, with the mediating role of rumination. It is worth noting that the sequential indirect effect of hot executive function on depression via cold executive function and then rumination was also significant. The results suggest that adolescents will be more likely to engage in rumination when their hot and cold executive functions are defective, thus often leading to an increase in their depression levels. More important, strengthening adolescents' executive control over emotional information, and training adolescents' cold execution function such as inhibition control and working memory refresh are effective measures to relief depression in adolescents.