Recent years have shown a marked growth in the literature examining the interpersonal context of depression. One area about which relatively little is known, however, concerns the relational correlates of depression in men. The present study examined the relationship between men's recollections of childhood experiences, their perceptions of their current marital relationship, and self-reported depressive symptomatology. A community sample of men completed the following self-report measures: (1) the Beck Depression Inventory; (2) the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire; (3) the Conflict-Tactics Scale (modified version); (4) the Revised Adult Attachment Scale; (5) the Level of Expressed Emotion scale (tolerance subscale). Analyses showed that self-reported childhood parental rejection, childhood physical abuse, insecure adult attachment and spousal intolerance were all positively correlated with self-reported depressive symptoms at the zero-order level. There was no evidence of moderating relationships between childhood and adulthood variables in predicting depressive symptoms. Path analysis supported the mediating hypothesis that reported maternal rejection in childhood contributes to reported attachment difficulties in adulthood, which are subsequently related to reported depression levels. In contrast, reported paternal rejection was found to be directly associated with reported depressive symptoms in adulthood. The findings underscore the importance of the interpersonal context in understanding men's emotional functioning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/9272 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Oliver, Luis E. |
| Contributors | Whiffen, Valerie, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 129 p. |
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