Depression is one of the most debilitating and common mental illnesses. Those who experience major depression carry the largest burden of disability among mental and behavioral disorders. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, major depression has a 6. 7% 12-month prevalence among adults in the U. S, an estimated 15. 7 million adults 18 or older, which is exceptionally significant. In addition, major depression accounts for 3. 7% of all U. S. disability-adjusted life years (DALYS) and 8. 3% of all U. S. years lived with disability (YLDs). ] The DSM-5 classifies major depression only when someone endorses five out of nine symptoms (depressed mood, anhedonia, changes in appetite: weight loss/gain, changes in sleep pattern: oversleeping or inability to sleep, psychomotor agitation or retardation, fatigue or loss of energy, diminished concentration, suicidal ideation or thoughts of death), lasting over a two week period that causes impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning and is not due to substance abuse, a medical condition or better explained by psychotic disorders. ]
When personal functioning is impaired, one’s sense of self and relationships can suffer as a result. A sense of self is a crucial part of one’s entire life and influences how we behave with others and in different contexts. Literature has supported that generally an individuals’ sense of self and relationships are intertwined due to their reciprocal, transactional nature. People’s interpersonal relationships become part of their self since they store mental representations of others alongside their self as memory (Swann… 2010).
Individuals come to know who they are within a social structure through interactions with others. They rely on feedback and information from others to form a basis of selfknowledge, as well as evaluate, maintain and regulate the self (self-comparison (Festinger, 1954), self-presentation (Tedeschi, 1981), self-verification (Swann, 1983)). The self is viewed as inseparable from its context and people view feedback that is consistent with existing self-views as more accurate and selfdescriptive, regardless of whether this feedback is actually correct or whether it is positively or negatively charged (Swann et al. 1987).
By nature, people have a need for independence and affiliation with others. One study proposed self-consistency as having internally stable and congruent self-views across relationships and social contexts. In the Western cultural model of self, the self is viewed as the center of awareness and as a distinct, coherent, and holistic entity separate and independent from other selves (Ho, 1995; Allen, 1997; Landrine, 1995).
Consistency promotes a sense of self-integrity and well-being in the context of a self-construal that emphasizes internal attributes, individual psychological characteristics, private beliefs, and attitudes. Given this model of the self, maintaining a consistent self-view across situations and relationships helps achieve the goal of perceiving oneself as independent of pressures to conform to situational norms, as freely choosing one’s actions, and as directed by one’s real beliefs, values, and desires. Cross… , 2003).
The intersection of depression and self, more specifically selfconsistency and how it relates to close relationships, is an area that has been seldom studied in the area of psychology since these concepts tend to fall in distinctly separate categegories, clinical and social psychology respectively. Intuitively, the types of major shifts that occur during depression could reasonably be expected to influence one’s sense of self-consistency.
A broad literature shows that forming a consistent sense of one’s self is important for interpersonal functioning. Surprisingly, very few studies have considered this possibility, or how impairments in self-consistency might influence outcomes. Research by Swann has shown that people with depression who do have a poor sense of self-consistency tend to ask others for negative feedback more; it is suggested this might help them consolidate the negative sense of self, which would potentially ease the sense that they don’t have a consistent sense of self.
This has been viewed as the basis for excessive reassurance-seeking, which in turn causes rejection and intensifies the risk of depression. But research demonstrating the poor selfconsistency in depression was conducted in the 1980s, using less than ideal measures. Our goal is to understand how depressive experiences influence the sense of self consistency. Episodes of major depression produce major changes in a person’s thought, behavior, emotions, and interpersonal behavior.
We hypothesize that these major changes in interpersonal function, when occurring during adolescence and early adulthood, could interfere with forming a consistent view of self, or self-consistency. The goal of this study is to test history of major depressive episodes and self-consistency. We will characterize the onset and course of major depressive episodes, as the severity and constancy of major depression may influence the pernicious effects on forming a consistent sense of self.
We also hypothesize that when a person has a clear and consistent sense of self during well periods, changes during the depressive episode may seem more alien, and so may be more likely to instill treatment seeking. As a secondary goal, we will examine how self-consistency is related to treatment-seeking. As this is a secondary goal, we will test it using a retrospective, cross-sectional design. Our hope is to demonstrate selfconsistency with better measures, and with more attention to how fluctuations in the course of depression (versus chronic depression) influence self-consistency.