Associations Between a Transdiagnostic Core Vulnerability and Internalizing Symptoms: A Network Analysis

Purpose: Recent research has sought to study how the overlapping features of extant cognitive vulnerabilities might serve as a general risk factor for internalizing psychopathology. However, it is not clear how this purportedly transdiagnostic core vulnerability is associated with internalizing psychopathology at the symptom level. Using a newly developed measure of this transdiagnostic core vulnerability, we aimed to identify which internalizing symptoms were most relevant to the core vulnerability. Methods: We fit an undirected network model composed of 36 internalizing symptoms nodes, four subscale nodes, and one node representing the core vulnerability to cross-sectional data obtained from 907 university students. Results: The core vulnerability was found to be transdiagnostic in that it was associated with symptoms spanning the different forms of internalizing psychopathology. Importantly, the core vulnerability was differentially associated with these symptoms. Of the various affective, cognitive, and somatic/vegetative symptoms analyzed, the core vulnerability only demonstrated direct and prominent associations with cognition-related internalizing symptoms. These associations varied in potency, with the symptom of feeling like a failure displaying the strongest association with the core vulnerability.Conclusions: The present study highlights the importance of conducting symptom-focused investigations of the interface between the transdiagnostic core vulnerability construct and internalizing psychopathology. Further research could potentially uncover the core symptomatic manifestations of the core vulnerability that might serve as suitable candidates for clinical intervention.