title: Self-derogations and the interpersonal theory.
abstract: The interpersonal theory of personality has been applied to explain depressed people's dilemma: The depressed person's submissive behavior invites dominating reactions from other people, and those reactions sustain the depressed person's depression. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that self-derogations connote submissiveness but are generally judged to be neutral in affiliation. Experiment 3 tested implications for the behavior of dysphoric and nondysphoric Ss as they interacted with a self-derogating, other-derogating, or nonderogating confederate partner. Ss selected a topic from a list and talked about it for 1 min: the confederate's script was fixed. The S's judgments of the confederate, choice of topics, satisfaction with the interaction, and actual responses were analyzed. Self-derogators were judged to be submissive, elicited dominating reactions, and selected more topics with negative content.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Stanford University, California 94305-2130.
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Horowitz
authors.forename: K D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Locke
authors.forename: M B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Morse
authors.forename: S V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Waikar
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Dryer
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tarnow
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ghannam
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004291:Dominance-Subordination; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D012649:Self Concept; D012933:Social Identification; D014705:Verbal Behavior