This article was downloaded by: [University of Dayton] On: 31 December 2014, At: 14:34 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Personality Assessment Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjpa20
Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire in a College Population David C. Zuroff , Donald M. Quinlan & Sidney J. Blatt Published online: 22 Jun 2011.
To cite this article: David C. Zuroff , Donald M. Quinlan & Sidney J. Blatt (1990) Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire in a College Population, Journal of Personality Assessment, 55:1-2, 65-72, DOI: 10.1080/00223891.1990.9674047 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223891.1990.9674047
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT, 1990, 55(1&2),65-72 Copyright o 1990, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire in a College Population David C. Zuroff Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
McGill University, Montreal
Donald M. Quinlan and Sidney J. Blatt Yale University School of Medicine
The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ, Blatt, DAfflitti, & Quinlan, 1976) was developed to permit the study of the continuities between normal and pathological forms of depression. Since its publication over 10 years ago, the DEQ has been increasingly used in a wide range of investigations of depression in clinical and nonclinical samples and as a measure of two major personality dimensions in a number of studies of differential responsiveness to various life stressors. This study provides an analysis of the DEQ responses in a large sample of undergraduate subjects in an attempt to articulate more clearly the psychometric properties of the DEQ. The DEQ consists of 66 items describing experiences frequently reported by depressed individuals. In the original development of the DEQ, factor analyses using male and female undergraduate samples yielded three orthogonal factors, Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy (Blatt et al., 1976). Most subsequent studies have used the factor scoring coefficients from the female sample to score men and women's DEQs. The factor loadings in the new male and female samples were very similar to one another and to the original female factor loadings. Thus, the continued use of the scoring parameters from the original female sample is recommended. Factor scores for Dependency and Self-Criticismcontinue to be uncorrelated in both men and women. Normative data are presented from the new samples, with men scoring higher on Self-criticism and women scoring higher on Dependency.
Depression is a n affect state as well as a clinical syndrome. Depression can range from a normal, expectable, and time-limited reaction t o severe, prolonged, and disabling episodes requiring hospitalization. Much of the research o n depressic~n emphasizes t h e discontinuities between less severe depressive affect and t h e
66
ZLJROFF, QUINLAN, BLATT
clinical syndromes of depression. Most measures of depression reflect this orientation by focusing on the symptoms of the clinical disorder. The DEQ (Blatt et al., 1976), in contrast, was developed to permit the study of the continuities between normal and pathological forms of depression. The DEQ's focus is phenomenological, assessing everyday life experiences that are common in both mild and severe states of depression. Blatt et al. (1976) developed the DEQ by assembling a pool of items describing experiences frequently reported by depressed individuals, f i r example, "distorted or depreciated sense of self and others, dependency, helplessness . . guilt, loss of autonomy, and distortions in family relations" (p. 384). Sixty-six items from this pool were administered to 500 female and 160 male undergraduates at Southern Connecticut State College in New Haven. Principal components analyses within sex yielded three factors, which were then subjected to varimax rotation. The solutions for the men and women were highly congruent (Blatt et al., 1976). The items with high loadings on the first factor, Dependency, involved "concerns about being rejected, hurting or offending people, and having difficulty in managing anger and aggression for fear of losing someone" (pp. 384-385). Items loading on the second factor, Self-Criticism, involved
Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
.
concerns about feeling guilty, empty, hopeless, unsatisfied, and insecure, having failed to meet expectations and standards, and being unable to assume responsibility, threatened by change, feeling ambivalent about self and others, and tending to assume blame and feel critical toward self. (p. 385) The third factor, Efficacy, loaded on items describing "goal-oriented strivings and feelings of personal accornpli~hment'~ (p. 385). The first two factors were recognized as corresponding to anaclitic and introjective depression, which had previously been identified by Blatt (1974) in an integration of the theoretical and clinical literatures on depression. Zuroff, Moskowitz, Wielgus, Powers, and Franko (1983) found that the test-retest reliabilities of Dependency and Self-Criticism were very high (Dependency, r = .81; Self-Criticism, r = .75) and suggested that the scales be conceptualized as measures of vulnerabilities to experience two types of mood, rather than as measures of the intensity of momentary mood states. Considerable evidence for the construct validity of the Dependency and Self-Criticism scales has accumulated. In clinical populations, Dependency and Self-criticism are related to traditional measures of depression such as the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979), with stronger relations consistently obtaining for Self-Criticism (Blatt, Quinlan, Chevron, McDonald, & Zuroff, 1982; Klein, Harding, Taylor, & Dickstein, 1988). Dependency and Self-Criticism have also been linked to depressive affect in college populations, both cross-sectionally (Zuroff & Mongrain, 1987) and longitudinally (Zuroff, Igreja, & Mongrain, in press). In addition, Dependency
Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
PROPERTIES OF DEQ
67
and Self-criticism have been shown to be related in theoretically expected ways to self-concept and self-esteem (Blatt et al., 1976; Zuroff et al., 1983), interpersonal behavior (Blatt et al., 1982; Zuroff & de Lorimier, 1989; Zuroff et al., & Quinlan, 1989; Blatt, Wein, Chevron, & 1983), descriptions of ~ a r e n t(Blatt s Quinlan, 1979; McCranie & Bass, 1984), dysfunctional attitudes (Mongrain & Zuroff, 1989), sex-role orientation (Chevron, Quinlan, & Blatt, 1978), and features of clinical case histories (Blatt et al., 1982). In light of the increasing use of the DEQ, it is important that investigators have access to normative and psychometric data and that consistent scoring procedures be employed. The basic psychometric characteristics of the DEQ scales were described by Blatt et al. (1976) and, in greater detail, in an unpublished manual (Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1979). The manual provides factor loadings, factor scoring coefficients, and item means and standard deviations for men and women. Although separate scoring for men and women may be desirable in some research contexts, most research with the DEQ has applied the female scoring parameters to both men and women. (The female parameters were selected because they were based on a larger sample.) The use of common scoring for men and women is reasonable in light of the high congruence between the male and female factors and the advantage of being able to compare men's and women's scores on the same scales (Chevron et al., 1978; Welkowitz, Lish, & Bond, 1985). Despite the existence of computer scoring programs,' the use of factor scores can be cumbersome; therefore, Welkowitz el: al. (1985)explored the use of a unit-weighted scoring procedure. Unfortunately, unit weighting leads to unacceptably high correlations among the scales (Cane & Gotlib, 1987; Welkowitz et al., 1985). Our study had three purposes: (a) to test the replicability of the factor structure of the DEQ in new samples of male and female undergraduates, (b) to examine the correlations between the DEQscales in the new samples using both factor scores and unit-weighted scoring, and (c) to provide normative inforrnation based on large standardization samples.
METHOD The subjects were enrolled in the introductory psychology course at SUNY-Binghamton during the 1980-1981 and 1981-1982 academic years. This course required students to participate in a group testing in which a variety of self-report measures were administered. Because the testing was required, virtually all students provided data. Subjects were free to omit individual items. A 'Scoring programs in Fortran for mainframe and MS-DOS, and MS-DOS Turbo Pascal, are available from the authors. The Fortran program is also listed in the manual for the DEQ.
68
ZUROFF, QUINLAN, BLATT
small number of subjects left some of the questions unanswered, and data from those subjects were deleted. The final samples consisted of 779 women and 373 men.
Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
RESULTS Principal components analyses of the DEQ items were performed separately for men and women. q e first three factors were retained and subjected to varimax rotations. After rotation, the factors accounted for 10.2%, 8.2%, and 5.8% of the variance in women and 9.5%, 8.5%, and 5.1% in men. The internal consistencies of the three scales, as in the original sample, were quite high. For women, Cronbach's alpha was .81 for Dependency, .75 for Self-criticism, and .73 for Efficacy; the corresponding alphas for men were 80, .77, and .69, respectively. Tucker's coefficient of factor congruence (Harman, 1960)was used to compare the three rotated factors in the two sexes. The coefficient is computed by correlating the factor loadings in two samples and can range from - 1 to f 1. The obtained coefficients were .97 for Dependency, .94 for Self-criticism, and .92 for Efficacy. The high level of congruence between male and female factors justifies the use of a single scoring system for men and women.
Replication The male and female factors obtained with this sample were compared with the factors obtained with the original female sample (Blatt et al., 1979). The Tucker coefficients for the three factors in the original and current female samples were .95, .95, and .85. The coefficients for the three factors in the original female and current male samples were .94, .89, and .77. A second method of comparison of the factors in the original and current samples was to correlate the factor scores based on the parameters derived from the original sample with the factor scores based on parameters derived from the current sample. In women, the correlations of the Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy factors were r(777) = .95, .94, and .95, respectively, allps < .001. In men, these correlations were r(371) = .95, .92, and .91, respectively, all p < .001. These results indicate that all three factors were highly replicable across samples. Scores for each of the three factors were calculated using the scoring coefficients and item means and standard deviations for the original female sample; this procedure was followed for both male and female subjects in the current sample. Table 1 shows that the means and standard deviations for the current female sample were quite close to the means of zero and the standard deviations of 1.00 for the factor scores in the original sample. Similar to the findings of Chevron et al, (1978), women scored higher than men on Dependency, F(1,
PROPERTIES OF DEQ
69
TABLE 1 Means and Standard Deviations for the Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy Scales
-
Scale -
M
SD
- .54 -.lo
.80 .83
- .04
.86 .87
--
Dependency Male Female Self-Criticism Male Female Efficacy Male Female
-.I9 .15 .14
.99 .95
-
Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
Note. Scores were calculated using the coefficientsfrom the Southern Connecticut State College female sample.
1150) = 75.10, P < .001, and men scored slightly higher on Self-Criticism, F(1, 1150) = 7.10, fi < .01. Correlations of the scores for Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy are reported in Table 2. It can be seen that Dependency and Self-Criticism were independent of one another in both the current male and female samples. This independence of factor scores contrasts markedly with the high correlations of scores based on the unit-weighting procedure (Cane & Gotlib, 1987; Welkovvitz et al., 1985). In the current sample, as in those of Cane and Gotlib (1987) smd Welkowitz et al. (1985), Dependency and Self-criticism were highly correlated when they were computed using the unit-weighting procedure, r(777) = .53, p < .001 in the women, and r(371) = .47, P < .001 in the men.
Norms Table 3 presents the scores corresponding to every fifth percentile of the male and female distributions for Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy. This normative information may be useful to investigators who wish to compare scores in their samples to scores in our large standardization samples. TABLE 2 Correlations of the Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy Scales Scale Dependency Self-Criticism Efficacy
Dependency
Self-Criticism
.05 .01 .04
-.lo*
Effitq
-
.07 .lo1
-
Note. Correlations above the diagonal are for women; correlations below the diagonal are for men. *p < .05.
70
ZUROFF, Q W A N , BLATT TABLE 3
Percentile Scores for Men and Women on the Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy Scales -
Dependency
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Percentile
Men
Women
Self-criticism
Men
Women
-
Effica~r Men
Women
DISCUSSION The factor structure of the DEQ was shown to be highly similar in men and women in the current sample and there was a high degree of similiarity between the factors derived in the current sample and the original sample. Although factor analytically derived scales are sometimes correlated in new samples, the DEQ scales remained nearly orthogonal in the new and larger sample. Previous research has shown that the scales are highly reliable in terms of both internal consistency and test-retest stability (Zuroff et al., 1983). In brief, the basic psychometric properties of the scales are quite satisfactory. Evidence for their construct validity is already substantial and continuing to accumulate. The replicability of the DEQs factor structure and lack of improved validity for the unit-weighted scales suggest the retention of the factor-scoring procedure based on the female sample. Computer scoring programs minimize the inconvenience of this procedure. The Dependency and Self-Criticism scales have been treated primarily as continuous variables, but they have also been used in a typological framework by dichotomizing scores and defining four groups of subjects (Blatt et al., 1982). Among the drawbacks of this typological approach is the sample-dependent
PROPERTIES OF DEQ
71
nature of the medians used to divide subjects. The nolrmative data presented here can be used by researchers to define low and high scores in consistent ways across different samples. It should be mentioned that this study, like many others, used a nonclinical sample. This is appropriate, because the scales were developed to study experiences of depression in normal as well as in clinical populations. Further research is needed to determine if similar psychometric characteristics would be obtained in other normal populations or in psychiatric populations.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Order of the first two authors was determined randomly. Copies of the manual for the DEQ and scoring programs are available from Sidney I. Blatt, Yale University School of Medicine, 25 Park Street, New Haven, CT 06519.
REFERENCES Beck, A. T., Rush, A., Shaw, B., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive t b a p y of depression. New York: Guilford. Blatt, S. J. (1974). Levels of object representation in anaclitic and introjective depression. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 29, 107-157. Blatt, S. J., D'Afflitti, J. P., & Quinlan, D. M. (1976). Experiences of depression in normal young adults. J o u m l of Abnormal Psychology, 85,383-389. Blatt, S. J., D'Afflitti, J. P., & Quinlan, D. M. (1979). Depressive Experiences Questionmire. Unpublished manual, Yale University, New Haven, C T . Blatt, S. J., & Quinlan, D. M. (1989, August). The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire and represenrations of parents. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans. Blatt, S. J., Quinlan, D. M., Chevron, E. S., McDonald, C., & Zuroff, D. C. (1982). Dependency and self-criticism: Psychological dimensions of depression. J o u m l of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 50, 113-124. Blatt, S. J., Wein, S. I., Chevron, E., & Quinlan, D. M. (1979). Parental representations and depression in normal young adults. Journal of A b n d Psychology, 88, 388-397. Cane, D. B., & Gotlib, I. H. (1987,June). Assessing dependent and self-oftical dimensions of depression: A preliminay investigation of their relationship. Paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Vancouver. Chevron, E., Quinlan, D. M., & Blatt, S. J. (1978).Sex role and gender differences in the experience of depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 680-683. Harman, H. (1960). Modem factor analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Klein, D. N., Harding, K., Taylor, E. B., & Dickstein, S. (1988). Dependency and self-criticism in depression: Evaluation in a clinical population. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97, 399-404. McCranie, E. W., & Bass, J. D. (1984). Childhood family antecedents of dependency and self-criticism: Implications for depression. Journal of Abnomral Psychology, 93, 3-8. Mongrain, M., &a Zuroff, D. C. (1989).Cognitive vulnerability to depressed affecr in dependent and self-critical college women. loumal of Personalicy Disorders, 3, 240-251.
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Welkowitz, J., Lish, J. D., & Bond, R. N. (1985). The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire: Revision and validation. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 89-94. Zuroff, D. C., & de Lorimier, S. (1989). Ideal and actual romantic partners of women varying in dependency and self-criticism. l o u d of Personality, 57,826-846. Zuroff, D. C., Igreja, I., & Mongrain, M. (in press). Dysfunctional attitudes, dependency, and self-criticism as predictors of depressive mood states: A 12-month longitudinal study. Cognitive Therapy and Research. Zuroff, D. C., & Mongrain, M. (1987). Dependency and self-criticism: Vulnerability factors for depressive affective states. Joumal of Abnormd Psychology, 96, 14-22. Zuroff, D. C., Moskowitz, D. S., Wielgus, M. S., Powers, T. A., & Franko, D. L. (1983). Consmct validation of the dependency and self-criticism scales of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality, 17, 226-241.
David Zuroff Department of Psychology McGill University 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue Montreal, Quebec Canada H3A 1B1 Received October 2, 1989 Revised November 27, 1989
Journal of Personality Assessment Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjpa20
Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire in a College Population David C. Zuroff , Donald M. Quinlan & Sidney J. Blatt Published online: 22 Jun 2011.
To cite this article: David C. Zuroff , Donald M. Quinlan & Sidney J. Blatt (1990) Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire in a College Population, Journal of Personality Assessment, 55:1-2, 65-72, DOI: 10.1080/00223891.1990.9674047 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223891.1990.9674047
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT, 1990, 55(1&2),65-72 Copyright o 1990, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire in a College Population David C. Zuroff Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
McGill University, Montreal
Donald M. Quinlan and Sidney J. Blatt Yale University School of Medicine
The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ, Blatt, DAfflitti, & Quinlan, 1976) was developed to permit the study of the continuities between normal and pathological forms of depression. Since its publication over 10 years ago, the DEQ has been increasingly used in a wide range of investigations of depression in clinical and nonclinical samples and as a measure of two major personality dimensions in a number of studies of differential responsiveness to various life stressors. This study provides an analysis of the DEQ responses in a large sample of undergraduate subjects in an attempt to articulate more clearly the psychometric properties of the DEQ. The DEQ consists of 66 items describing experiences frequently reported by depressed individuals. In the original development of the DEQ, factor analyses using male and female undergraduate samples yielded three orthogonal factors, Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy (Blatt et al., 1976). Most subsequent studies have used the factor scoring coefficients from the female sample to score men and women's DEQs. The factor loadings in the new male and female samples were very similar to one another and to the original female factor loadings. Thus, the continued use of the scoring parameters from the original female sample is recommended. Factor scores for Dependency and Self-Criticismcontinue to be uncorrelated in both men and women. Normative data are presented from the new samples, with men scoring higher on Self-criticism and women scoring higher on Dependency.
Depression is a n affect state as well as a clinical syndrome. Depression can range from a normal, expectable, and time-limited reaction t o severe, prolonged, and disabling episodes requiring hospitalization. Much of the research o n depressic~n emphasizes t h e discontinuities between less severe depressive affect and t h e
66
ZLJROFF, QUINLAN, BLATT
clinical syndromes of depression. Most measures of depression reflect this orientation by focusing on the symptoms of the clinical disorder. The DEQ (Blatt et al., 1976), in contrast, was developed to permit the study of the continuities between normal and pathological forms of depression. The DEQ's focus is phenomenological, assessing everyday life experiences that are common in both mild and severe states of depression. Blatt et al. (1976) developed the DEQ by assembling a pool of items describing experiences frequently reported by depressed individuals, f i r example, "distorted or depreciated sense of self and others, dependency, helplessness . . guilt, loss of autonomy, and distortions in family relations" (p. 384). Sixty-six items from this pool were administered to 500 female and 160 male undergraduates at Southern Connecticut State College in New Haven. Principal components analyses within sex yielded three factors, which were then subjected to varimax rotation. The solutions for the men and women were highly congruent (Blatt et al., 1976). The items with high loadings on the first factor, Dependency, involved "concerns about being rejected, hurting or offending people, and having difficulty in managing anger and aggression for fear of losing someone" (pp. 384-385). Items loading on the second factor, Self-Criticism, involved
Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
.
concerns about feeling guilty, empty, hopeless, unsatisfied, and insecure, having failed to meet expectations and standards, and being unable to assume responsibility, threatened by change, feeling ambivalent about self and others, and tending to assume blame and feel critical toward self. (p. 385) The third factor, Efficacy, loaded on items describing "goal-oriented strivings and feelings of personal accornpli~hment'~ (p. 385). The first two factors were recognized as corresponding to anaclitic and introjective depression, which had previously been identified by Blatt (1974) in an integration of the theoretical and clinical literatures on depression. Zuroff, Moskowitz, Wielgus, Powers, and Franko (1983) found that the test-retest reliabilities of Dependency and Self-Criticism were very high (Dependency, r = .81; Self-Criticism, r = .75) and suggested that the scales be conceptualized as measures of vulnerabilities to experience two types of mood, rather than as measures of the intensity of momentary mood states. Considerable evidence for the construct validity of the Dependency and Self-Criticism scales has accumulated. In clinical populations, Dependency and Self-criticism are related to traditional measures of depression such as the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979), with stronger relations consistently obtaining for Self-Criticism (Blatt, Quinlan, Chevron, McDonald, & Zuroff, 1982; Klein, Harding, Taylor, & Dickstein, 1988). Dependency and Self-Criticism have also been linked to depressive affect in college populations, both cross-sectionally (Zuroff & Mongrain, 1987) and longitudinally (Zuroff, Igreja, & Mongrain, in press). In addition, Dependency
Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
PROPERTIES OF DEQ
67
and Self-criticism have been shown to be related in theoretically expected ways to self-concept and self-esteem (Blatt et al., 1976; Zuroff et al., 1983), interpersonal behavior (Blatt et al., 1982; Zuroff & de Lorimier, 1989; Zuroff et al., & Quinlan, 1989; Blatt, Wein, Chevron, & 1983), descriptions of ~ a r e n t(Blatt s Quinlan, 1979; McCranie & Bass, 1984), dysfunctional attitudes (Mongrain & Zuroff, 1989), sex-role orientation (Chevron, Quinlan, & Blatt, 1978), and features of clinical case histories (Blatt et al., 1982). In light of the increasing use of the DEQ, it is important that investigators have access to normative and psychometric data and that consistent scoring procedures be employed. The basic psychometric characteristics of the DEQ scales were described by Blatt et al. (1976) and, in greater detail, in an unpublished manual (Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1979). The manual provides factor loadings, factor scoring coefficients, and item means and standard deviations for men and women. Although separate scoring for men and women may be desirable in some research contexts, most research with the DEQ has applied the female scoring parameters to both men and women. (The female parameters were selected because they were based on a larger sample.) The use of common scoring for men and women is reasonable in light of the high congruence between the male and female factors and the advantage of being able to compare men's and women's scores on the same scales (Chevron et al., 1978; Welkowitz, Lish, & Bond, 1985). Despite the existence of computer scoring programs,' the use of factor scores can be cumbersome; therefore, Welkowitz el: al. (1985)explored the use of a unit-weighted scoring procedure. Unfortunately, unit weighting leads to unacceptably high correlations among the scales (Cane & Gotlib, 1987; Welkowitz et al., 1985). Our study had three purposes: (a) to test the replicability of the factor structure of the DEQ in new samples of male and female undergraduates, (b) to examine the correlations between the DEQscales in the new samples using both factor scores and unit-weighted scoring, and (c) to provide normative inforrnation based on large standardization samples.
METHOD The subjects were enrolled in the introductory psychology course at SUNY-Binghamton during the 1980-1981 and 1981-1982 academic years. This course required students to participate in a group testing in which a variety of self-report measures were administered. Because the testing was required, virtually all students provided data. Subjects were free to omit individual items. A 'Scoring programs in Fortran for mainframe and MS-DOS, and MS-DOS Turbo Pascal, are available from the authors. The Fortran program is also listed in the manual for the DEQ.
68
ZUROFF, QUINLAN, BLATT
small number of subjects left some of the questions unanswered, and data from those subjects were deleted. The final samples consisted of 779 women and 373 men.
Downloaded by [University of Dayton] at 14:34 31 December 2014
RESULTS Principal components analyses of the DEQ items were performed separately for men and women. q e first three factors were retained and subjected to varimax rotations. After rotation, the factors accounted for 10.2%, 8.2%, and 5.8% of the variance in women and 9.5%, 8.5%, and 5.1% in men. The internal consistencies of the three scales, as in the original sample, were quite high. For women, Cronbach's alpha was .81 for Dependency, .75 for Self-criticism, and .73 for Efficacy; the corresponding alphas for men were 80, .77, and .69, respectively. Tucker's coefficient of factor congruence (Harman, 1960)was used to compare the three rotated factors in the two sexes. The coefficient is computed by correlating the factor loadings in two samples and can range from - 1 to f 1. The obtained coefficients were .97 for Dependency, .94 for Self-criticism, and .92 for Efficacy. The high level of congruence between male and female factors justifies the use of a single scoring system for men and women.
Replication The male and female factors obtained with this sample were compared with the factors obtained with the original female sample (Blatt et al., 1979). The Tucker coefficients for the three factors in the original and current female samples were .95, .95, and .85. The coefficients for the three factors in the original female and current male samples were .94, .89, and .77. A second method of comparison of the factors in the original and current samples was to correlate the factor scores based on the parameters derived from the original sample with the factor scores based on parameters derived from the current sample. In women, the correlations of the Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy factors were r(777) = .95, .94, and .95, respectively, allps < .001. In men, these correlations were r(371) = .95, .92, and .91, respectively, all p < .001. These results indicate that all three factors were highly replicable across samples. Scores for each of the three factors were calculated using the scoring coefficients and item means and standard deviations for the original female sample; this procedure was followed for both male and female subjects in the current sample. Table 1 shows that the means and standard deviations for the current female sample were quite close to the means of zero and the standard deviations of 1.00 for the factor scores in the original sample. Similar to the findings of Chevron et al, (1978), women scored higher than men on Dependency, F(1,
PROPERTIES OF DEQ
69
TABLE 1 Means and Standard Deviations for the Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy Scales
-
Scale -
M
SD
- .54 -.lo
.80 .83
- .04
.86 .87
--
Dependency Male Female Self-Criticism Male Female Efficacy Male Female
-.I9 .15 .14
.99 .95
-
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Note. Scores were calculated using the coefficientsfrom the Southern Connecticut State College female sample.
1150) = 75.10, P < .001, and men scored slightly higher on Self-Criticism, F(1, 1150) = 7.10, fi < .01. Correlations of the scores for Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy are reported in Table 2. It can be seen that Dependency and Self-Criticism were independent of one another in both the current male and female samples. This independence of factor scores contrasts markedly with the high correlations of scores based on the unit-weighting procedure (Cane & Gotlib, 1987; Welkovvitz et al., 1985). In the current sample, as in those of Cane and Gotlib (1987) smd Welkowitz et al. (1985), Dependency and Self-criticism were highly correlated when they were computed using the unit-weighting procedure, r(777) = .53, p < .001 in the women, and r(371) = .47, P < .001 in the men.
Norms Table 3 presents the scores corresponding to every fifth percentile of the male and female distributions for Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy. This normative information may be useful to investigators who wish to compare scores in their samples to scores in our large standardization samples. TABLE 2 Correlations of the Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy Scales Scale Dependency Self-Criticism Efficacy
Dependency
Self-Criticism
.05 .01 .04
-.lo*
Effitq
-
.07 .lo1
-
Note. Correlations above the diagonal are for women; correlations below the diagonal are for men. *p < .05.
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ZUROFF, Q W A N , BLATT TABLE 3
Percentile Scores for Men and Women on the Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy Scales -
Dependency
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Percentile
Men
Women
Self-criticism
Men
Women
-
Effica~r Men
Women
DISCUSSION The factor structure of the DEQ was shown to be highly similar in men and women in the current sample and there was a high degree of similiarity between the factors derived in the current sample and the original sample. Although factor analytically derived scales are sometimes correlated in new samples, the DEQ scales remained nearly orthogonal in the new and larger sample. Previous research has shown that the scales are highly reliable in terms of both internal consistency and test-retest stability (Zuroff et al., 1983). In brief, the basic psychometric properties of the scales are quite satisfactory. Evidence for their construct validity is already substantial and continuing to accumulate. The replicability of the DEQs factor structure and lack of improved validity for the unit-weighted scales suggest the retention of the factor-scoring procedure based on the female sample. Computer scoring programs minimize the inconvenience of this procedure. The Dependency and Self-Criticism scales have been treated primarily as continuous variables, but they have also been used in a typological framework by dichotomizing scores and defining four groups of subjects (Blatt et al., 1982). Among the drawbacks of this typological approach is the sample-dependent
PROPERTIES OF DEQ
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nature of the medians used to divide subjects. The nolrmative data presented here can be used by researchers to define low and high scores in consistent ways across different samples. It should be mentioned that this study, like many others, used a nonclinical sample. This is appropriate, because the scales were developed to study experiences of depression in normal as well as in clinical populations. Further research is needed to determine if similar psychometric characteristics would be obtained in other normal populations or in psychiatric populations.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Order of the first two authors was determined randomly. Copies of the manual for the DEQ and scoring programs are available from Sidney I. Blatt, Yale University School of Medicine, 25 Park Street, New Haven, CT 06519.
REFERENCES Beck, A. T., Rush, A., Shaw, B., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive t b a p y of depression. New York: Guilford. Blatt, S. J. (1974). Levels of object representation in anaclitic and introjective depression. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 29, 107-157. Blatt, S. J., D'Afflitti, J. P., & Quinlan, D. M. (1976). Experiences of depression in normal young adults. J o u m l of Abnormal Psychology, 85,383-389. Blatt, S. J., D'Afflitti, J. P., & Quinlan, D. M. (1979). Depressive Experiences Questionmire. Unpublished manual, Yale University, New Haven, C T . Blatt, S. J., & Quinlan, D. M. (1989, August). The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire and represenrations of parents. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans. Blatt, S. J., Quinlan, D. M., Chevron, E. S., McDonald, C., & Zuroff, D. C. (1982). Dependency and self-criticism: Psychological dimensions of depression. J o u m l of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 50, 113-124. Blatt, S. J., Wein, S. I., Chevron, E., & Quinlan, D. M. (1979). Parental representations and depression in normal young adults. Journal of A b n d Psychology, 88, 388-397. Cane, D. B., & Gotlib, I. H. (1987,June). Assessing dependent and self-oftical dimensions of depression: A preliminay investigation of their relationship. Paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Vancouver. Chevron, E., Quinlan, D. M., & Blatt, S. J. (1978).Sex role and gender differences in the experience of depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 680-683. Harman, H. (1960). Modem factor analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Klein, D. N., Harding, K., Taylor, E. B., & Dickstein, S. (1988). Dependency and self-criticism in depression: Evaluation in a clinical population. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97, 399-404. McCranie, E. W., & Bass, J. D. (1984). Childhood family antecedents of dependency and self-criticism: Implications for depression. Journal of Abnomral Psychology, 93, 3-8. Mongrain, M., &a Zuroff, D. C. (1989).Cognitive vulnerability to depressed affecr in dependent and self-critical college women. loumal of Personalicy Disorders, 3, 240-251.
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Welkowitz, J., Lish, J. D., & Bond, R. N. (1985). The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire: Revision and validation. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 89-94. Zuroff, D. C., & de Lorimier, S. (1989). Ideal and actual romantic partners of women varying in dependency and self-criticism. l o u d of Personality, 57,826-846. Zuroff, D. C., Igreja, I., & Mongrain, M. (in press). Dysfunctional attitudes, dependency, and self-criticism as predictors of depressive mood states: A 12-month longitudinal study. Cognitive Therapy and Research. Zuroff, D. C., & Mongrain, M. (1987). Dependency and self-criticism: Vulnerability factors for depressive affective states. Joumal of Abnormd Psychology, 96, 14-22. Zuroff, D. C., Moskowitz, D. S., Wielgus, M. S., Powers, T. A., & Franko, D. L. (1983). Consmct validation of the dependency and self-criticism scales of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality, 17, 226-241.
David Zuroff Department of Psychology McGill University 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue Montreal, Quebec Canada H3A 1B1 Received October 2, 1989 Revised November 27, 1989
