Brown and Harris (1978) and Radloff and Rae (1979) have suggested that depression may result from the interaction of precipitating and susceptibility factors. The present study investigated the relationship between depressive symptomatology and a set of demographic and psychosocial variables presumed to be depression-susceptibility factors. A sample of 499 adult women completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), a demographic assessment, and measures of four psychosocial variables: life control, perceived accomplishment, derived identity, and social support. Higher CES-D scores were associated with less perceived life control, less perceived accomplishment, higher derived identity, and lower social support. Consistent with previous findings, higher CES-D scores also correlated with lower education, lower or nonemployment, younger age, and lower family income. To assess the relative importance of demographic and psychosocial factors, a hierarchical multiple regression was conducted with demographic variables entered first, followed by the psychosocial variables and, last, by the interaction variables. The set of psychosocial variables accounted for an additional 28% of depression variance beyond the 11% accounted for by the demographic variables. Perceived life control was the strongest contributor to the final regression equation. Alternative interpretations of the results and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Derived identity, defined as a sense of self that is overly influenced by and dependent upon relationships with significant others, and depressive symptomatology, measured by the CES‐D scale, were assessed in a sample of 564 adult women classified into one of six marital‐employment status groups: married professional, single professional, married nonprofessional, single nonprofessional, married nonemployed, and single nonemployed. Married women were found to report more derived identity than single women and when age effects were controlled, married women also had higher CES‐D scores than single women. Employment status results in aggregate indicated that for women of equal education: (1) employment outside the home, whether it be professional or non‐professional, is related to a more autonomous sense of self than nonemployment and (2) employment outside the home is not associated with lower CES‐D scores than nonemployment. Derived identity and depression were also found to be significantly correlated within the total sample and within each marital‐employment status group.

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