DEPRESSION IN WOMEN AS RELATED TO ANGER AND MUTUALITY IN RELATIONSHIPS

Self-in-relation theory (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller. Sliver, & Surrey, 199 1) proposes that a lack of mutuality in women's relationships predispo ses them to depression and inhibits their ability to acknowledge and a ddress effectively emotions such as anger. Research linking anger to d epression has not examined women's emotional expressivity within the c ontext of their partner relationships. Women's depression as a functio n of both their level of anger suppression or inappropriate anger expr ession and the level of perceived relationship mutuality was studied i n a sample of 223 college women, aged 18 to 54. Lower levels of mutual ity and higher levels of suppressed or inappropriately expressed anger were associated with depression. Moreover, mutuality made contributio ns to predicting depression beyond that explained by anger. Lower mutu ality was also related to higher anger suppression, but unrelated to i nappropriately expressed anger.