THE CORRELATION BETWEEN DEPRESSION AND HEADACHE - THE ROLE PLAYED BY GENERATIONAL CHANGES IN FEMALE ACHIEVEMENT

The relationship between depression and somatic symptoms such as heada che has never been explained. Both depression and headache appear to b ecome more prevalent among women than among men only for cohorts that reach adolescence during periods of great change in opportunities for a female's academic achievement. In Studies 1a and 1b, the same patter n was found to apply to the correlation between depression and headach e. In Studies 2a and 2b, self-report measures of depression and headac he were found to share significant variance only among female adolesce nts who reported concerns regarding the limited achievements of their mothers. These females may view the roles of adult women as being limi ted and may experience stress and low self-esteem associated with depr essive and somatic symptomatology.