SEX-DIFFERENCES IN DEPENDENCY - A COMPARISON OF OBJECTIVE AND PROJECTIVE MEASURES

The relationship between scores on two widely used measures of depende ncy-one objective and one projective-was examined in a sample of 102 u ndergraduate subjects (60 women and 42 men). Consistent with previous studies in this area, significant sex differences were found on the ob jective measure of dependency, with women obtaining higher dependency scores than men. However, as predicted, men and women obtained compara ble scores on the projective measure of dependency. Additional analyse s confirmed that scores on the objective and projective measures of de pendency were significantly intercorrelated in both men and women, alt hough the magnitudes of these correlations were somewhat larger in wom en than in men. Implications of these results for the assessment of de pendent personality traits in research and clinical settings are discu ssed.