International Journal of Behavioral Development 2006, 30 (1), 2025 http://www.sagepublications.

com

2006 The International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development DOI: 10.1177/0165025406059969

Coping with longitudinal data in research on developmental psychopathology

David A. Cole
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

Many outcome variables in developmental psychopathology research are highly stable over time. In conventional longitudinal data analytic approaches such as multiple regression, controlling for prior levels of the outcome variable often yields little (if any) reliable variance in the dependent variable for putative predictors to explain. Three strategies for coping with this problem are described. One involves focusing on developmental periods of transition, in which the outcome of interest may be less stable. A second is to give careful consideration to the amount of time allowed to elapse between waves of data collection. The third is to consider trait-state-occasion models that partition the outcome variable into two dimensions: one entirely stable and trait-like, the other less stable and subject to occasion-specic uctuations.

Like many developmental psychopathology researchers, I began my career wishing I had longitudinal data. With longitudinal data, I felt I would be one step closer to identifying the predictors, and perhaps the causes, of childhood psychopathology. At the very least, I would no longer be obliged, at the end of every paper, to issue the standard apology for having derived all my conclusions from cross-sectional studies. Now, fortunate enough to have accumulated longitudinal data, I spend much of my time coping with their incumbent frustrations. In this article, I have two primary goals. One is to outline some of the problems often associated with the analysis of longitudinal data. The second is to suggest some methodological and statistical approaches that might be helpful in coping with these problems. In this effort, I use examples drawn from my work on depression in children; however, the general points should be relevant to other areas of developmental psychopathology as well. Underlying many longitudinal data analytic problems is the stability of the construct of interest. Throughout this article, I use the term stability to mean the constancy of individual differences over time. According to this denition, high stability suggests that individuals who score high on a construct (relative to their peers) at one point in time continue to score high (relative to their peers) at subsequent points in time. Conversely, individuals who score low (relative to their peers) continue to score low. I do not use the term to refer to the constancy of an individuals scores relative to his or her self over time. Thus complete and perfect stability can exist despite the fact that every individuals score changes over time, as long as all of these changes occur in the same direction and to the same extent (Nesselroade, 1988, 1991). In psychopathology research, measures of disorders often show rather high levels of stability over time, a phenomenon that becomes problematic when one attempts to predict or explain change in such measures. Predicting change in a highly stable phenomenon can be frustrating (if not pointless). The problem becomes evident in the classic regression approach to

non-experimental, longitudinal data. Let us imagine a study in which the investigator hypothesizes that stressful life events at time 1 (represented by S1) generate or predict depression at time 2 (D2). The investigator wants to control (statistically) for prior levels of depression (D1). A regression approach to this problem would be symbolized as D2 = 0 + 1D1 + 2S1, in which the size and signicance of 2 would be taken as support for the hypothesis. A problem emerges when D is highly stable. As the correlation between D1 and D2 increases, D1 explains more and more of the variance in D2 (i.e., 1 gets quite large), leaving less variance for S1 to explain (i.e., 2 becomes quite small). For example, if depression has a stability of .5, the range of possible values for 2 extends from 0 to as high as .75. If, however, the stability of depression is .9, the maximum possible value for 2 is only .19. So, the question becomes: How stable is depression? The answer depends on three things. The rst is what I mean by depression. For the purposes of this article, I treat depression as a continuous individual difference characteristic that can be assessed from multiple perspectives. These perspectives include self-report, parent evaluations, teacher ratings, and peer nominations. Clearly other conceptualizations and operationalizations of depression are possible. The methods described in this article apply to them as well. Second, the question depends on when depression is measured. We speculated that depression would be less stable during periods of transition (Tram & Cole, 2005). The transition from elementary school to middle school often signies changes in the educational environment from a self-contained classroom to an open curriculum, from a relatively small school to a somewhat larger one, and from a collection of very familiar classmates to a population of strangers. In many communities, this transition occurs at ages when students are going through puberty, another major life transition. For some individuals, these transitions are stressful; for other people,

Correspondence should be sent to David A. Cole, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Peabody 512, 230 Appleton

Place, Nashville, TN 372035721, USA; e-mail: david.cole@ vanderbilt.edu

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such transitions represent opportunities for growth and exploration (Crockett, Petersen, Graber, Schulenberg, & Ebata, 1989; Herman-Stahl & Petersen, 1996; Leffert & Petersen, 1996). Consequently, we hypothesized that individual differences in depression would change and that the stability of depression would drop when children underwent such an educational transition during early adolescence. Third, the question depends on how the stability of depression is evaluated. Estimates of stability can be negatively biased by mono-operationism (Campbell & Fiske, 1959; Cook & Campbell, 1979). When depression is measured by only a single measure, the error of measurement inherent in that measure will attenuate correlations involving that measure, leading to an underestimation of the true stability of the underlying construct. For example, if the actual stability of depression were .70 and the reliability of the depression measure were .64, the correlation between the time 1 and time 2 measures would underestimate the actual stability by an amount computed by the classic correlation attenuation formula r12 = .70 .64 .64 .45. Estimates of stability can also be positively biased by mono-methodism (Marsh, 1993). Most estimates of stability derive from studies in which the same method of measurement is used on two occasions. The correlation of these two measures then represents not only the stability of the construct but the stability of the method as well. For example, if the method had .40 stability, we would overestimate the actual stability of the construct in the previous example: r12 = .70 .64 .64 + .40 .85. In a relatively large-scale, multi-method, longitudinal study, we examined the stability of depression before, during, and after childrens transition from elementary to middle school (Tram & Cole, 2005). We obtained self-reports, parent evaluations, teacher ratings, and peer nominations of depressive symptoms on 1203 students every 6 months for 8 waves, from the beginning of grade 5 (approximately age 11) to the end of grade 8 (approximately age 14). In order to avoid problems of mono-operation bias, we extracted a latent variable from each wave of measures, as represented by the large circles in Figure 1. In order to avoid problems of mono-method bias, we allowed the manifest variable error terms for each set of methods to correlate across waves (represented by the curved double-headed arrows in Figure 1), a method recommended by Kenny (Kenny & Kashy, 1992; Kenny, Kashy, & Bolger,

1998) and Marsh (1993) for modeling shared method variance. In this way, we estimated the stability of the latent depression variable, not just the stabilities of the fallible manifest variables. The stability estimates for the latent depression variable are plotted in Figure 2. Unlike the results presented in Tram and Cole (2005), these estimates are broken down by gender. On average, the depressive symptoms latent variable was very stable. The median stability coefcient was .93. Such a stability coefcient would restrict any other predictor to a maximum beta weight of approximately .13 (and this assumes that such a predictor explains 100% of the remaining variance). Fortunately Figure 2 also reveals a substantial drop in stability that coincides with the transition from elementary to middle school (approximately age 12.5). At this point, the average stability was .85. Such stability would restrict the maximum contribution of any other variable to .28. We argued that this time of transition in early adolescence represents a window of slightly reduced stability, during which other etiological variables may be somewhat more inuential. The stability of depression also depends on the amount of time that elapses between time intervals. In several large-scale studies (e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, & Seligman, 1992; Tram and Cole, 2005) six months elapsed between waves of data collection. A review of the literature reveals stability estimates that are based on intervals as brief as two weeks (e.g., Smucker, Craighead, Craighead, & Green, 1986) and as long as 72 months (Holsen, Kraft, & Vitterso, 2000). A plot of these stability estimates (corrected for attenuation due to measurement unreliability) reveals that they vary as a function of the time interval (see Figure 3). Stability generally diminishes as the time interval increases; however, stability does not drop to zero even over very long intervals. Several recent reviews suggest that this same general pattern is characteristic of a wide range of personality and temperament variables (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005; Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003). Nevertheless, variations in this pattern will likely exist for different dimensions of psychopathology. Knowing how quickly stability drops and knowing when (or if ) stability plateaus will enable psychopathology researchers to select more optimal time intervals for their longitudinal designs. Measuring too frequently could generate such high levels of

Dep 1

Dep 2

Dep 8

self

prnt

peer

tchr

self

prnt

peer

tchr

self

prnt

peer

tchr

Figure 1.

Structural equation model of a monotrait-multimethod model of construct stability.

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COLE / COPING WITH LONGITUDINAL DATA

.95

Girls
.90 .85

Boys
.80 .75 .70 11.0 11.5 12.0 12.5 13.0 13.5 14.0

Age (years)
Figure 2. gender. Six-month stability estimates broken down by age and

1.0

.8 .6 .4 .2 .0 0 12 24 36 48 60 72 84 L ag (in mon th s)

Figure 3. Plot of published stability estimates for depression measures as a function of lag time (corrected for measurement reliability).

stability that even the most potent predictor has little chance to have a detectible impact. Not measuring frequently enough could allow so much time to elapse that the impact of the predictor has come and gone by the time the second wave of data is collected. The shape of the relation between stability and time interval suggests that two distinct processes may underlie the continuity of depression. The fact that stability estimates tend to diminish as the time interval increases suggests the inuence of processes that are somewhat transitory. The fact that stability estimates seem to plateau at a value greater than zero suggests the inuence of something enduring or trait-like. Other reections on the factors underlying construct stability describe similar processes (Fraley & Roberts, 2005). Several methodologists have developed structural equation models designed to separate a longitudinal time series of data into these two component parts (Kenny & Zautra, 1995, 2001; Steyer & Schmitt, 1994). Unfortunately, Kenny and Zautras method, although conceptually compatible with depression research, has proven difcult to implement, frequently yielding inadmissible parameter estimates. Steyer and Schmitts model, although better behaved statistically, contains constraints that

limit its utility in the current situation. In a recent paper (Cole, Martin, & Steiger, 2005), we propose a Trait-State-Occasion (TSO) model, which combines the strengths of the KennyZautra and SteyerSchmitt models, yet avoids some of their incumbent weaknesses. The TSO model requires two or more measures of the underlying construct at every wave of the study. Based on these, the model develops three types of latent variables as depicted by the path diagram in Figure 4. First, the TSO model extracts a latent state factor (S1) from the available manifest variables at every wave of the study. In our case, each S factor represents the total level of depression experienced at a given wave. Each of these latent state variables is the result of two other kinds of latent variables, a single latent trait factor (T) and a time-specic occasion factor (O1). The trait factor represents reasons why part of S1 is completely stable over time. Such reasons might include genetic or biological conditions that do not change over time and yet contribute to the expression of S at all points in time. The O1 factors represent the determinants of S1 that are not completely constant over time. These variables might include environmental, interpersonal, or psychological characteristics that can change over time and also contribute to the expression of S at every point in time. Although occasion factors change over time, they can also perpetuate themselves to a degree. This degree of instability is represented by the autoregressive function that relates Ot to Ot1 in Figure 4. In longitudinal studies, the same measures (and consequently the same methods) are often used wave after wave. As noted earlier, such shared method variance can inate estimates of stability in structural equation models. A modication of the TSO model enables the investigator to estimate and control for the effects of shared method variance in carefully constructed longitudinal designs. These effects are depicted at the bottom of Figure 4 by the curved double-headed arrows connecting the disturbance terms for the self-report measures. Similar sets of correlations are modeled (but not shown in the gure) for other sets of measures that utilize the same method. To demonstrate the utility of the TSO model, we reanalyzed a subset of the data from Tram and Coles (2005) study. These data included self-report, parent rating, and peer nomination measures of depression collected on 882 young adolescents over four waves that were 6 months apart. The self-report was the Childrens Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1985); parent ratings derived from a parent version of the CDI (Wierzbicki, 1987); and peers provided information using the Peer Nomination Index of Depression (PNID; Lefkowitz & Tesiny, 1980). The sample contained 452 boys (51%) and 430 girls (49%). The sample was very diverse: 35% African American, 59% Caucasian, 4% Hispanic, and 2% other. Participants came from two age cohorts (3 years apart). During the collection of these data, the participants were in grades 5 and 6. They ranged in age from 11 to 13. Using the maximum likelihood tting algorithm of AMOS 5.0 structural equation modeling program (Arbuckle & Wothke, 1999), I t a 4-wave version of the TSO model to these data. To this model (which is essentially the same as that depicted in Figure 4), we added several equality constraints. First, I constrained the factor loadings at a given wave to be equal to their counterparts at every other wave. Second, I constrained the manifest variable error variances to be equal to their counterparts across waves. Taken together, these constraints test the equivalence of the measurement model

Stability (corrected correlation)

Stability Coefficient ( )

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T
1 1 1 1

O1 S1
s1 g1

O2 S2

O3 S3

O6 S6
s6 g6 p6

p1

s2

g2

p2

s3

g3

p3

Figure 4. Path diagram of a latent trait-state-occasion (TSO) model with three measures per wave (s = self-report, g = guardian/parent rating, p = peer nomination).

across waves. Third, constrained the stability estimates () to be equal to one another, thus testing whether or not stability changed over these intervals. And fourth, I constrained the residual variances for the occasion factors to be equal to each other across waves. All of these constraints are plausible in longitudinal models of children, as long as the overarching time frame of the study is not so long that measurement or structural parameters are apt to change. Experience with such models suggests that when such parameters are appropriately constrained, standard errors for all estimates tend to diminish. This model t the data exceptionally well. The chi-square was not signicant despite the large sample size, 2(51) = 43.60 (p > .20). Other goodness-of-t indices (better indices of practical signicance) all indicated that discrepancies between the model and the data were very small. The normed t index, the incremental t index, and the Tucker-Lewis index were all between .99 and 1.0. Furthermore, the root mean squared error of approximation was .001 with a 90% condence interval of .000 to .016, suggesting a very close t (Steiger & Lind, 1980). All parameter estimates were in range and all standard errors were relatively small, suggesting that the solution had relatively high delity. Unstandardized parameter estimates appear in Table 1. Factor loadings were all statistically signicant (ps < .001); standardized estimates ranged in magnitude from .51 to .68. Covariances between the manifest variable error terms were also signicant, revealing that extraneous variables (e.g., method factors) contribute to the correlation of measures with themselves over time and should be controlled. Trait factor variance was .62, almost double the occasion factor variance (.38). Perhaps most import was the .61 stability of the occasion factor. This represents a considerable drop from Tram and

Table 1
Latent TSO model parameter estimates
Parameter Trait factor variance Occasion factor variance Occasion factor stability ( ) Residual variance for occasion factor Self-report factor loading Parent report factor loading Peer nom. factor loading Self-report error variance Parent report error variance Peer nom. error variance Covariances between error terms Estimate .62 .38 .61 .15 .51 .68 .53 .72 .66 .76 .31.64 Standard error .13 .11 .13 .03 .05 .05 .04 .04 .04 .03.04

Note. All estimates were signicant at p < .001.

Coles (2005) stability estimates, which ranged from .92 to .95 for the overall depression factor over this same time interval and age range. After extracting a perfectly stable trait, the residual occasion factor was much less stable.

Discussion and conclusions

In coping with longitudinal data in the study of depression in children, I have discovered that special attention must be paid to several methodological issues, issues that have been largely overlooked or under-utilized in research on developmental psychopathology. First, as depression appears to be a highly

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stable construct, researchers should focus on periods of transition when individual differences in depression may be in ux. Second, researchers should give careful consideration to the time interval that elapses between waves of their longitudinal designs. Third, by obtaining multiple measures of the construct (e.g., depression) at each wave, researchers can distinguish more stable and less stable dimensions of depression. Longitudinal efforts to predict change in depression might be better spent focusing on the less trait-like aspects of the disorder. Attention to each of these methodological issues has generated insights into the longitudinal nature of depression. First, relatively few studies have examined changes in the stability of depression (or other forms of psychopathology) as a function of age. Most studies have (a) focused on a single developmental period, (b) assumed that stability is constant over age, or (c) merely controlled for stability without carefully examining how it changes over the course of the study. The study by Tram and Cole (2005) is an exception. With a general focus on early adolescence as a time of multiple transitions, and with a specic focus on the often-stressful educational transition from elementary to middle school, Tram and Cole made two important discoveries. One pertained to the general level of stability of depression; the other, to the drop in its stability during this educational transition. In general, the stability of depression was extremely high, so high that conventional efforts to predict changes in individual differences could prove quite frustrating. On average, estimates of stability over six-month intervals hovered around .92. These estimates were obtained in a manner that (a) avoided the attenuation that typically accompanies the use of fallible measures and (b) controlled for the effects of monomethodism that often inate such estimates. In other words, this is the stability of the underlying depression construct, not the stability of a particular fallible method of measuring depression. A common misconception is that use of a single less stable measure of depression might be to the researchers advantage, in that controlling for prior levels of this measure would leave more variance in the dependent variable for the predictor variables to explain. The aw in this reasoning is that the dependent variable is the same fallible measure, and the lions share of its unexplained variance will be random measurement error. Tram and Cole (2005) also found that the stability of depression dropped during the educational transition from elementary to middle school. Although stability estimates were still quite high (.85), this drop provides a naturally occurring window of opportunity. Controlling for prior depression during this period leaves somewhat more unexplained variance in the depression construct for other predictors to explain. Although important in principle, this nding warrants several important cautionary notes. One is that predictors discovered during this interval may be age- or transition-specic. Additional research would be needed to determine if they predict depression in general or just during this particular developmental event. A second concern is that this educational transition is confounded with other social and biological transitions that also occur during this time. From this one study, we cannot say whether the elementary to middle-school transition or shifts in peer relations or changes associated with puberty or some combination of all of the above might truly be responsible for the observed drop in the stability of depression. A third limitation is that the developmental windows of opportunity that may exist for the study of

depression may not be the same for the study of other forms of psychopathology. Working with other disorders, working on other samples, and working in other social and educational contexts, researchers are advised to discover their own periods of relative instability, during which potential predictors may be inuential. The second major methodological concern is the duration of the time interval that elapses between waves of a longitudinal design. In the depression literature, estimates of stability are quite large over brief intervals and diminish as the intervening time interval becomes longer (Cole, Peeke, Martin, Truglio, & Seroczynski, 1998; Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1992). Roberts and DelVecchios (2000) literature review reveals the same basic pattern for a wide range of personality and temperament variables. I speculate that the pattern will hold for other dimensions of psychopathology as well. If one designs a study with time intervals that are too brief, the factors that drive depression will have had relatively little time to change. The stability of depression may be so high that prior levels of depression are likely to be the only signicant predictors. One solution may be to extend the interwave interval in longitudinal designs, giving naturally occurring predictors the opportunity to destabilize individual differences in depression. In selecting the optimal interval, the researcher must be mindful not only of the stability of the outcome variable, but of the diminishing effects of most predictors as the time interval increases. Further complicating the problem is the fact that the optimal time interval for one variable may be different from the optimal interval for another predictor. The loss of a parent may continue to have some depressogenic impact for years, whereas a family altercation may evoke only a short-term depressive reaction. The third methodological concern pertains to the possibility that depression itself may be multidimensional, and that these dimensions may have different longitudinal characteristics. Fraley and Roberts (2005) suggest that the stability of individual differences in psychological constructs must be understood in terms of patterns of stability and their underlying developmental mechanisms. These include stochastic-contextual processes, person-environment transactions, and developmental constancies. In a similar vein, we advocate obtaining multiple measures of the construct at each wave and then implementing trait-state-occasion models (Cole, Martin, & Steiger, 2005). Related procedures have been proposed by Steyer and Schmitt (1994) and by Kenny and Zautra (2001). Applied to measures of depression, these models suggest that depression may consist of two processes: one, stable and traitlike over time; the other, less stable and more subject to uctuation from occasion to occasion. In our analyses of children in fth and sixth grade, the more trait-like dimension seemed to predominate, although the less stable component also accounted for signicant variance at every time point. These two different components of depression may have different etiologies and perhaps even different developmental psychopathologies. The more trait-like dimension may be determined by genetic or other enduring biological characteristics. It may also be maintained by chronic, unyielding environmental factors. Conventional cross-lag panel designs will not be useful in identifying variables that predict changes in trait-like depression, precisely because trait-like depression does not change (at least not over the interval for which traitlike depression has been identied). To attempt such would be analogous to predicting change in race, gender, or eye color.

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Controlling for prior levels of the dependent variable will leave nothing for other variables (even variables that measure the true underlying cause) to predict. The less stable dimension of depression may be determined by factors that change (to some degree) from occasion to occasion. Such factors might include external variables like negative life events, stress, and interpersonal hardships as well as internal biological or psychological factors that vary over time. As demonstrated by Cole, Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, and Paul (2005), the very act of controlling for the trait-like dimension of depression in the context of a panel design can increase the likelihood of nding support for a potential predictor. The goal of such an approach is to attempt to predict changes in that part of the dependent variable that actually changes over time. In summary, longitudinal data in developmental psychopathology often reveal very high stability of individual differences over time. This article contains three strategies for coping with such stability: focusing on developmental periods when individual differences are in greater ux; carefully considering the duration of the time interval between data collection efforts; and obtaining multiple measures at each of these time points, thereby enabling the separation of more and less stable dimensions of the targeted disorder.

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