Subscales Within the Dependency Factor of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire

• Published in: Journal of personality assessment Vol. 64; no. 2; pp. 319 - 339
• Main Authors: Blatt, Sidney J., Zohar, Ada H., Quinlan, Donald M., Zuroff, David C., Mongrain, Myriam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia, PA Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc 01.04.1995; Taylor & Francis; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, etc
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Dependency (Psychology); Depression - diagnosis; Depression - psychology; Depressive experiences; Factors; Female; Gender Identity; Humans; Internal-External Control; Interpersonal Relations; Life Change Events; Male; Medical sciences; Personality Assessment - statistics & numerical data; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychometrics; Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of Results; Scales; Self Concept; Techniques and methods; Human; Clinical test; Test validation; Personality test; Depression; Psychometrics; Depressive Experiences Questionnaire; Multidimensional scaling
• ISSN: 0022-3891; 1532-7752
• DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa6402_11

Recent theoretical formulations differentiate two types of depressive experiences: one focused on interpersonal issues, such as loss, abandonment, and loneliness; the other focused on issues of self-esteem, such as failure, guilt, and lack of self-worth and autonomy. The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ; Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976, 1979) assesses these two types of depression. Symptom-based measures of depression (i.e., the Beck Depression Inventory, Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979) have highly significant correlations with the DEQ Self-Criticism factor but only marginally significant correlations with the DEQ Dependency (or interpersonal) factor. Through the use of facet theory and Smallest Space Analysis (Guttman, 1982a), two facets were identified within the DEQ Dependency factor that appear to assess two different levels of interpersonal relatedness. One facet, labelled dependence, includes items expressing feelings of helplessness; fears and apprehensions about separation and rejection; and intense, broad-ranging concerns about possible loss unrelated to a particular relationship. The second facet, labelled relatedness, includes items that consider feelings of lass and loneliness in reaction to disruption of a relationship with a particular person. The dependence facet had significantly higher correlations with measures of depression, whereas the relatedness facet had significantly higher correlations with measures of psychological well-being, especially in women. Thus, the DEQ Dependency factor appears to contain two facets that assess interpersonal relatedness at different developmental levels and correlate differentially with measures of depression and of psychological well-being.