INTERPERSONAL DEPENDENCY AND ACADEMIC-PERFORMANCE

Forty-eight first-year college students (25 women and 23 men) completed self-report measures of level of interpersonal dependency and then provided information regarding their Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores and overall high school grade point averages (GPAs). Dependent men had significantly higher high school GPAs than did nondependent men, even when scholastic aptitude was controlled for statistically. However, a parallel relationship between dependency and academic performance was not found in women. These results are discussed in the context of previous research on the dependency-academic performance relationship. The implications of these findings for studies of gender differences in dependency and for studies examining the positive, adaptive qualities of dependent personality traits are discussed.