Cognitive-interpersonal patterns in dysphoria: The impact of sociotropy and autonomy

Dysphoric and nondysphoric women who had predominantly sociotropic or predominantly autonomous personality features were compared on their responses to a standardized interpersonal task in which a confederate acted as a "helper" to plan life changes. As predicted, sociotropic subjects, whether dysphoric or not, were more concerned about interpersonal relatedness in the task, whereas autonomous subjects were more concerned about self-definition. Sociotropic subjects also perceived their partners more positively and liked them more than did autonomous subjects. Dysphoric autonomous subjects were liked less well than were dysphoric sociotropic subjects or either nondysphoric group. These results reinforce theoretical speculations that two distinct cognitive-interpersonal patterns underlie the behavior of dysphoric individuals and indicate that both personality features and dysphoria influence interpersonal rejection.