title: Differential roles of depressive and anxious symptoms and gender in defensiveness.
abstract: Among a sample of Air Force cadets facing the prospect of basic training (N= 1,190; 1,005 men and 185 women), the influence of a defensive test-taking style on measures of depressive and anxious symptoms was examined. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck & Steer, 1987) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, 1988), as well as the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) L scale. Results supported hypotheses that defensiveness would affect a self-report measure of depression but not a self-report measure of anxiety and would do so more among men than women. Applied implications of the results are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee 32306-1270, USA. joiner@psy.fsu.edu
authors.forename: T E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Joiner
authors.forename: N B
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Lerew
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gencoz
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gencoz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D003717:Denial, Psychological; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008950:MMPI; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors