Marked differences in core beliefs about self and others, between sociotropy and autonomy: personality vulnerabilities in the cognitive model of depression.

Objective: The cognitive model of depression posits two distinctive personality vulnerabilities termed sociotropy and autonomy, each of which is composed of a cluster of maladaptive self-schemas. It is postulated that negative core beliefs about self underlie maladaptive self-schemas as a whole, whereas those about others may be implicated in the autonomous self-schemas. Therefore, the present study examined the relations of sociotropy and autonomy with core beliefs about self and others.

Methods: The sample of this study consisted of 321 healthy Japanese volunteers. Sociotropy and autonomy were evaluated by the corresponding subscales of the Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale. Core beliefs about self and others were assessed by the negative-self, positive-self, negative-other and positive-other subscales of the Brief Core Schema Scales.

Results: In the forced multiple regression analysis, sociotropy scores were correlated with negative-self scores ( = 0.389, < 0.001). Meanwhile, autonomy scores were correlated with positive-self scores ( = 0.199, < 0.01) and negative-other scores ( = 0.191, < 0.01).

Conclusion: The present study suggests marked differences in core beliefs about self and others between sociotropy and autonomy, further contrasting the two personality vulnerabilities to depression.