Depressive personality styles, dysphoria, and social comparisons in everyday life

"Sociotropic" people are supposedly vulnerable to dysphoria after negative interpersonal events, whereas "autonomous" people are supposedly vulnerable to achievement-related failures. The present study examined whether these personality styles are borne out in social comparison processes. For 3 week s, 27 sociotropic and 35 autonomous undergraduates completed records of the ir social comparisons. Depressive personality style moderated comparison fr equency and the affective consequences of comparisons, especially for dysph oric individuals: Dysphoric respondents were especially likely to make comp arisons in domains that were congruent with their personalities, and compar isons in congruent domains were associated with greater mood change than co mparisons in other domains, perhaps especially for dysphoric respondents. T hese results have implications for the literatures on social comparison and on depressive personality styles.