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Related Experiment Videos

Separate personality traits from states to predict depression.

Lee Anna Clark1, Jeffrey Vittengl, Dolores Kraft

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242-1407, USA. la-clark@uiowa.edu

Journal of Personality Disorders
|May 21, 2003
PubMed
Summary

Personality assessments capture both stable traits and temporary emotional states. During depression, emotional states can obscure underlying personality traits, affecting prediction accuracy.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychiatry
  • Psychology
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Inconsistent findings exist on personality measures predicting depression severity.
  • Acute depression may impact the validity of personality assessments.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To differentiate between stable personality traits and variable state-affect in personality measures.
  • To investigate how these components relate to depression severity over time.

Main Methods:

  • Employed regression and factor analytic techniques.
  • Separated personality measure variance into trait and state-affect components.

Main Results:

  • Depression severity correlated with both stable traits and concurrent state-affect.

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  • Changes in depression severity correlated with state changes, not stable traits.

    • Conclusions:

    • Personality measures reflect both state affect and trait variance.
    • State affect can mask trait variance in acutely depressed individuals, impacting predictive validity.