PERSONALITY AND DEPRESSION - A VALIDATION-STUDY OF THE DEPRESSIVE EXPERIENCES QUESTIONNAIRE

This study investigated the validity of Blatt's model of depression as indicated by his operational measure of its constructs via the Depres sive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ; Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 197 6). Hypothesized relations between the two relevant scales of the DEQ and Tellegen's (1982) Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) were examined. Participants consisted of 195 women, including 67 hosp italized unipolar depressives, 77 never-hospitalized unipolar depressi ves, and 51 nonpsychiatric controls. Overall, the results partially su pported the validity of the DEQ even though all participants were wome n and prior studies have indicated the DEQ's greater discriminative va lidity for men than for women. However, several of the most strongly p redicted relations, such as between DEQ Self-Criticism and MPQ Achieve ment were not confirmed. Coherent, significant relations between scale s of the two measures remained after partialling out the effects of se verity of depression.