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. © 2015,© 2015 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.