SOCIOTROPY, AUTONOMY, AND PATTERNS OF SYMPTOMS IN PATIENTS WITH MAJORDEPRESSION - A COMPARISON OF DIMENSIONAL AND CATEGORICAL APPROACHES

The purposes of this study were: (a) to investigate the relations betw een the Personal Style Inventory (PSI) measures of sociotropy and auto nomy and symptoms of psychopathology in depressed patients (n = 103), and (b) to compare the relative utility of categorical and dimensional approaches to differentiating depressed patients on the basis of soci otropy and autonomy. Sociotropy was related to interpersonal sensitivi ty, guilt and self-blame, and symptoms suggesting anxious depression o r high negative affectivity Autonomy was related to interpersonal dist ance and hostility, hopelessness/suicidality, feelings of failure, and anhedonia, suggesting low positive affectivity. These results provide support for the relevance of sociotropy and autonomy to depression an d for the construct validity of the PSI: Cluster analysis did not iden tify clear categorical groups of participants, and differences between the most interpretable groups on symptoms could be predicted from the dimensional sociotropy and autonomy scores, suggesting no incremental utility of a categorical approach to these personality variables over a dimensional one.