RELATIONSHIP OF DEPENDENCY AND ACHIEVEMENT AUTONOMY TO DEPRESSION

We review research pertaining to two personality characteristics that have been depicted as vulnerabilities to depression. One pathway is marked by excessive dependency involving intense needs for acceptance and love from others in order to maintain fragile self-esteem and to prevent depressed feelings. The second pathway is marked by excessive demands for accomplishment and control accompanied by very stringent self-standards and relentless self-criticism when these standards are not met. Our review is organized around four topics: (a) measurement of dependency and achievement/autonomy needs; (b) meta-analytic estimation of the effect sizes for these two characteristics on standardized measures of depressive symptoms; (c) investigation of moderators of the personality-depressive experiences relationship paying special attention to the interaction of personality with negative life events; and (d) discussion of clinical implications of current findings and future research directions for potential depressogenic personality dispositions. Although relationships between depression and dependency or depression and achievement/autonomy are moderated by several factors, both relationships are of sufficient magnitude to merit continued attention by clinicians and researchers. © 1990.