Personality, Life Events, and Depression

Abstract

The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ; Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976a) and the Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale (SAS; Beck, Epstein, Harrison, & Emery, 1983) have been used virtually interchangeably to assess personality styles that are believed to influence the development of depressive symptomatology in the context of specific negative life events. This study examined the extent to which these two personality measures overlap and tested the congruency hypothesis. The congruency hypothesis predicts that levels of depression vary as a function of the interaction between personality and the occurrence of thematically related negative life events. Results indicated that the DEQ Dependency and the SAS Sociotropy scales appear to measure similar constructs, whereas the DEQ Self-Criticism and SAS Autonomy scales do not appear to measure similar constructs. Further, support was obtained for the congruency hypothesis using either the DEQ Dependency scale or the SAS Sociotropy scale; however, support for this hypothesis was not obtained for the DEQ Self-Criticism scale or the SAS Autonomy scale.