Life stress and depression: A test of the congruency hypothesis for life event content and depressive subtype.

Abstract
The hypothesis that certain personality styles may function as vulnerability factors leading to depression in the face of specific life event types was evaluated. Ten dependent and 16 self-critical remitted depressed patients were followed for a period of six months and assessed for the occurrence of category-specific life events and level of depression, including clinical relapse. Life events from a standard life event inventory were categorized according to whether their content reflected interpersonal or achievement concerns; this allowed an examination of the extent to which vulnerable subtypes react differently to specific stressors. Results indicated that for dependent subjects only, congruency with life event content was associated both with self-reported levels of depression and with clinical relapse. A subtype .times. event type .times. relapse MANOVA yielded a three-way interaction suggesting that relapse for self-critical subjects was not differentially effected by the number of interpersonal or achievement life events experienced; however, dependent subjects relapsed more often after the experience of interpersonal rather than achievement events. No differences were reported between the total number of interpersonal or achievement stressors experienced by each subtype group, ruling out selective exposure as a possible explanation for these findings.