Patterns of inner experience: daydreaming styles, depressive moods, and sex roles

This study explored relations among daydreaming styles, normal depressive moods, and psychological sex roles. Factor analyses indicated that three orientations toward events characterize inner experience: Positive, Expressive, and Instrumental perspectives. Regression analyses showed that a unique pattern of inner experience is associated with each of the two types of depressive mood. These patterns are consistent with the two modes of emotional response and superego functioning--shame and guilt--that Lewis (1976) identified. Examination of sex differences and sex role differences in the data suggests that (a) psychological sex roles have more consistent relations to daydreaming styles and depressive experiences than does biological sex, (b) previous reports of sex differences in depression may be partly explainable in terms of differences in distractability and sex roles, and (c) psychological sex roles have different meanings for women and men.