Personality and gender-related differences in depression

Seventy recovered female nonbipolar depressed patients and 32 recovered males were individually matched for age, sex and marital status with never mentally ill control subjects. Difference scores on personality scales indicative of interpersonal dependency, learned helplessness, and other features were compared for female patients and their matched controls, vs male patients and their controls. The difference between patients and controls was not less for females than males. Thus the hypothesis that the higher prevalence of depression in women is due to the fact that their general personality features resemble those associated with a predisposition to depression was not supported.