Date of Award:

5-2001

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Psychology

Committee Chair(s)

Tamara J. Ferguson

Committee

Tamara J. Ferguson

Committee

Xitao Fan

Committee

Susan Crowley

Committee

Frank Ascione

Committee

Thorana Nelson

Abstract

Gender differences in psychopathology have long been of interest in the fields of clinical, developmental, and personality psychology. Lewis proposed two models to explain the emergence of the development of gender differences in depression and paranoia. Lewis stated that gender differences in depression and paranoia can be traced to corresponding gender differences in cognitive style, guilt-proneness, shame-proneness, and the use of specific defense mechanisms. Although research evidence has validated certain components of these two models, neither model has ever been tested in its entirety. This research project intended to test Lewis's models in their entirety by utilizing structural equation modeling.

College students, N (men)= 104, N (women)= 197, at two universities participated in the study. Each participant completed the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFD, Defense Mechanism Inventory (DMI), Adapted Shame/Guilt Scale (ASGS), Personal Feelings Questionnaire-2 (PFQ-2), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Symptoms Checklist 90-R (SCL-90-R). Lewis hypothesized that the depression model would account for more of the variance in the data for women than for men, whereas the paranoia model would account for more of the variance in the data for men than for women. The results revealed little support for these hypotheses. It appeared, instead, that the constructs of guilt and shame were the most important in predicting paranoid and depressive symptoms, respectively. These results were similar for men and women. Continued research concerning the connection between guilt and paranoia as well as the connection between shame and depression appears to be warranted.

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