Social problem-solving and suicidal behavior in adolescent girls: Examining interactions among proximal and distal social stress-related risk factors

Adverse social experiences are often linked to suicidal behavior in adolescence, perhaps particularly for girls. Social problem-solving abilities may indicate more or less adaptive responses to adverse social experiences that contribute to adolescent girls’ risk for suicidal behavior. While social problem-solving is implicated in cognitive and behavioral theories of suicidal behavior, prior work is largely cross-sectional and examines bivariate associations between social problem-solving, assessed in neutral conditions, and suicidal behavior. The current study examined adolescent girls’ social problem-solving before and after an experimentally-simulated social stressor, and tested whether changes in specific problem-solving domains predicted greater likelihood of future suicidal behavior in contexts of elevated, real-life interpersonal stress. Longitudinally, findings revealed that adolescent girls who showed greater changes (i.e., reflecting declines) in problem-solving effectiveness following acute social stress were more likely to exhibit suicidal behavior over the following nine months, but only if they also experienced elevated interpersonal stress in real life. State-dependent changes in social problem-solving may indicate a cognitive vulnerability following social stress that, in combination with higher levels of real-life interpersonal stress, distinguishes adolescent girls at elevated risk for future suicidal behavior.