Depression-proneness, low self-esteem, unhappy outlook, and narcissistic vulnerability.

Abstract

A personality inventory of 40 self-descriptive items that had previously discriminated between remitted, formerly depressed women and women with no psychiatric history was administered to 32 male and 32 female university students, along with a recently developed measure of depression-proneness. Measures of current severity of depression (the Beck Depression Inventory) and current level of depressed affect (the DACL) were also included. Factor analyses showed that the items of the personality inventory defined three major factors, labeled low self-esteem, unhappy outlook, and narcissistic vulnerability. Partial correlations, controlling for current level of depression and depressed affect, indicated statistically significant relationships between measures of depression-proneness and measures of low self-esteem and unhappy outlook—but not narcissistic vulnerability. The utility of the depression-proneness measure in investigating vulnerability to depression was noted.