Gender differences in the manifestation of sociotropy and autonomy personality traits

Beck (1983) proposed that two personality dimensions––sociotropy and automony––confer vulnerability to the onset of depressive episodes. Although gender differences are posited, with women more likely to manifest sociotropic personality traits than men, and men more likely to display autonomous personality traits than women ( Beck, 1983), there has been virtually no specific attention directed to gender differences in these personality traits and their relation to depression. In this study, the personality profiles of sociotropic and autonomous men and women, measured by the Revised Personal Style Inventory (PSI-II, Robins et al., 1994) were compared by using the domains and facets of the five-factor model of personality (FFM; Costa & McCrae, 1992) in a sample of patients with major depression (118 men, 202 women). A gender difference emerged from the pattern of correlations between PSI-II sociotropy and autonomy and the domains and facets of the Five-Factor Model of personality (FFM), suggesting that sociotropy and autonomy can signify different things for depressed men and women.