Differential roles of depressive and anxious symptoms and gender in defensiveness.
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.
Joiner
T E
TE
Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee 32306-1270, USA. joiner@psy.fsu.edu
Schmidt
N B
NB
Lerew
D R
DR
Cook
J H
JH
Gencoz
T
T
Gencoz
F
F
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