The Development of Self-Criticism and Dependency in Early Adolescence and Their Role in the Development of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms

According to Blatt and others (e.g., A. T. Beck), self-definition, or one’s sense of self, and one’s sense of relatedness to others represent core lifespan developmental tasks. This study examined the role of events pertaining to self-definition or relatedness in the development of personality traits from each domain (self-criticism and dependency), and their relationship to the development of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Two hundred seventy-six early adolescents completed a measure of self-criticism and dependency at baseline and again 24 months later, along with measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Every 3 months, participants completed a measure of life events, which were coded as self-definitional or relatedness oriented (80% rater agreement, kappa =.70). Structural equation models showed that self-definitional events predicted increases in self-criticism, which in turn predicted increases in depressive symptoms, whereas relatedness events predicted increases in dependency, although dependency was unrelated to change in symptoms.