Cognitive-personality vulnerability and event perception in the prediction of depression in Chinese women of Hong Kong

Two dimensions of cognitive-personality vulnerability (CPV) were hypothesized to be directly and indirectly related to clinical depression. According to Beck's (1983, 1987, 1991) diathesis-stress model, sociotropy matches with interpersonal events and autonomy matches with achievement events to predict depression. The present research attempted to apply this western model on the Chinese women in Hong Kong. It consisted of three studies. Study 1 was a validation study of the Chinese version of the Revised Sociotropy Autonomy Scale (Clark, Steer, Beck, & Ross, 1995). The instrument was found to be valid and internally consistent. Study 2 was a cross-sectional study of three groups of women: a clinically depressed outpatient group, a clinically anxious outpatient control group, and a community control group, and both self-report measures of anxiety and depression were used as dependent variables. Partial support to the direct effect hypothesis and the personality-event congruence hypothesis were obtained. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed a direct effect of solitude-autonomy and a direct effect of event perception of loss of goal as predictors of depression in the clinically depressed group. Personality-event congruence hypothesis was supported in that solitude-autonomy interacted with goal loss to influence the level of depression and anxiety in the clinically anxious women. In the community group, both dimensions of CPV interacted with both goal loss and relation loss to predict the anxiety and depression levels. Study 3 was a six-month follow-up study of the same clinically depressed group and community control group in Study 2. A series of structural equation modelling analyses were conducted to test the conceptual model in Study 2. The direct effects of solitude-autonomy and perception of loss of goal continued to be robust predictors of depression at T2 in the Depressed Group. Sociotropy at T1 was found to be associated with goal loss at T2 to predict depression at T2 in the Depressed Group. These relationships were not significant for predicting anxiety at T2 in the Depressed and depression and anxiety levels at T2 in the Community Groups. Research limitations and clinical implications of the results were discussed.