Fig. 1

Summary of the three steps of statistical analysis implemented. The first step was a careful measurement foundation comprised of psychometric analyses to create the Depression Index, and data-reduction techniques to create robust and valid indicators or summaries of distinct appraisal processes. The second step involved group construction which comprised creating distinct depression-trajectory groups on the basis of the respondents’ path between health states (depressed vs. not depressed) over the three follow-up time points. Finally, the third step involved longitudinal modeling, which applied an iterative series of random effects models of these time-varying (e.g., appraisal) and time-invariant (e.g., group) indicators to investigate how appraisal mediated and moderated the experience of depression (outcome) over time (time) as a function of depression trajectory group (group), after adjusting for demographic covariates. Note that”Appraisal” is used to represent each of the six appraisal composite-score variables