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The authors examined the relationship between self-criticism, dependency, and treatment outcome for 102 participants who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for major depressive disorder. The participants were randomly assigned to receive either cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), interpersonal therapy (IPT), or pharmacotherapy with clinical management (PHT-CM) and completed the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (Blatt, D'Affilitti, & Quinlan, 1976), a measure of self-criticism and dependency, as part of a broader research protocol. Regression analyses indicated that among individuals in IPT, self-criticism predicted poorer treatment outcome based on depressive symptom severity measured using the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (Hamilton, 1960, 1967). In addition, there were trends toward dependency predicting worse treatment response in CBT and self-criticism predicting better treatment response in PHT-CM. Keywords: Depressive Experiences Questionnaire; Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression; dependency; self-criticism; depression; treatment outcome; cognitive-behavioral therapy; interpersonal therapy

We examined the relation between child maltreatment and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Participants were 86 adolescents who completed measures of child maltreatment, self-criticism, perceived criticism, depression, and NSSI. Analyses revealed significant, small-to-medium associations between specific forms of child maltreatment (physical neglect, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse) and the presence of a recent history of NSSI. Emotional and sexual abuse had the strongest relations with NSSI, and the data supported a theoretical model in which self-criticism mediates the relation between emotional abuse and engagement in NSSI. Specificity for the mediating role of self-criticism was demonstrated by ruling out alternative mediation models. Taken together, these results indicate that several different forms of childhood maltreatment are associated with NSSI and illuminate one mechanism through which maltreatment may be associated with NSSI. Future research is needed to test the temporal relation between maltreatment and NSSI and should aim to identify additional pathways to engagement in NSSI. Keywords: Self-injury; Child abuse; Criticism; Self-harm; Self-mutilation; Suicide

East Asians generally endorse higher social anxiety than do Westerners. Widely used measures of social anxiety, however, may not account for different social values across cultures. Drawing from Korean (n = 251) and Euro-Canadian (n = 250) community samples, this study used a cross-sectional design to examine the relationship between ratings of social anxiety and beliefs and self-views typically found in East Asian cultures. Results indicated that independent self-construal and identity consistency, views of the self that are typically associated with Western cultures, fully mediate the ethnic difference on self-reported social anxiety. Moreover, two indicators of East Asian views of the self in social contexts (interdependent self-construal and self-criticism) were partial mediators. Overall, the data suggest conceptualizations of pathological social anxiety may need to be revised to be useful for studying individuals in East Asian cultures. Keywords: Social anxiety; Social phobia; Self-construal; Self-criticism; Identity consistency; East Asians

A confusion exists between the aims of psychotherapy of diminishing self-reproach, on the one hand, and increasing the experience of personal responsibility, on the other. In order to clarify this problem a distinction is made between moral responsibility, central to self-reproach, and psychological responsibility or agency. Self-reproach is shown to be inimical to the experience of psychological responsibility, with reference to psychotherapy of a case of severe obsessive self-reproach.

The current study utilized a multiwave longitudinal design to examine whether dependency and/or self-criticism influence the course of depressive symptoms in a community sample of adults with a history of major depression. In addition, the authors examined whether self-esteem serves as a buffer against the development of depressive symptoms following increases in hassles in individuals possessing such traits. At Time 1, 102 participants completed measures assessing depressive symptoms, self-criticism, dependency, and self-esteem. Every 6 weeks for the next year, participants completed measures assessing depressive symptoms and hassles. High self-criticism was associated with greater elevations in depressive symptoms following elevations in hassles in low- but not high-self-esteem individuals. Results with respect to dependency, however, were contrary to hypotheses. High dependency was associated with elevations in depressive symptoms following elevations in hassles in high-self-esteem individuals. In contrast, high dependency was associated with chronically elevated depressive symptoms in low-self-esteem individuals. Keywords: self-criticism; dependency; self-esteem; hassles; depressive symptoms

In prospective research, psychiatric patients' perceived criticism (PC)from family members has been linked to higher rates of relapse and worse treatment outcome. Researchers have disagreed about whether PC contributes to poor treatment outcomes or whether it merely reflects the severity of a patient's disturbance. In this study, structural equation modeling was used to conduct a cross-lagged panel analysis of the relationship between PC and anxiety symptom severity assessed before and after treatment in anxiety-disordered patients. PC was found to be unrelated to concurrent symptom severity. Furthermore, pretreatment PC significantly predicted posttreatment symptom severity over and above the effect of pretreatment symptom severity, whereas pretreatment symptom severity failed to significantly predict posttreatment PC. Thus, these results are consistent with (although not proof of) the hypothesis that PC detracts from patients' ability to respond to treatment, and inconsistent with the hypothesis that PC is a reflection of a patient's symptom severity. Keywords: perceived criticism; anxiety; behavior therapy

This article discusses the relationship between rape myth and intimate violence. Topics include self-blame, acquaintance rape, and sexual aggression.

Many diathesis-stress models have been proposed in which cognitive processes of various types are presumed to represent vulnerabilities to development of depressive symptoms. This study tested three potential vulnerabilities as prospective predictors of such symptoms: the holding of especially high standards, the tendency to be self-critical after failure, and the tendency to generalize from a single failure to the broader sense of self-worth. At the start of a semester, college students completed a measure of these cognitive tendencies and a measure of depressive symptoms. Six weeks later they completed the same measure of depressive symptoms and a brief measure of intervening life events. Hierarchical regression analysis yielded evidence that Generalization interacted with adverse events to predict subsequent depressive symptoms. Self-Criticism also tended to predict later symptoms, but only if the symptoms were present initially. High Standards had no adverse effect.

Relations between characterological versus behavioral self-blaming attributions for victimization and maladjustment were examined in middle school students. Respondents completed a questionnaire that assessed self-perceptions of victim status, attributions for hypothetical incidents of victimization, and feelings of loneliness, social anxiety, and low self-worth. They also completed peer nomination procedures measuring perceptions of victimization in others, as well as peer acceptance and rejection. Self-perceived victimization was associated with characterological self-blame, loneliness, anxiety, and low serf-worth. Peer-perceived victimization, in contrast, was related to acceptance and rejection. The data suggest that self-views are more predictive of the intrapersonal consequences of victimization (loneliness, anxiety, low self-worth), whereas peer views are more predictive of interpersonal consequences (peer acceptance and rejection).

Cognitive and interpersonal models of depression were integrated by examining the links between parental representations and the interpersonal behaviors of individuals at risk for depression. Study 1 assessed the quantity and type of social support associated with Dependency and Self-Criticism. Study 2 examined the parental representations related to these personality styles, in an effort to document cognitive variables that might contribute to interpersonal behaviors. Self-critics were found to be more dysphoric over a 21-day, self-monitoring period, made fewer requests for social support, and showed lower perceptions of support. Peers did not report providing less support to self-critics, but found them less expressive and did not know them as well. Study 2 found pervasive, negative parental representations associated with Self-Criticism providing a cognitive underpinning to social distancing. Dependent participants reported higher levels of support, which was corroborated by the peer reports. Study 2 found Dependency to be related to favorable representation of parents for friendly and submissive, but not hostile, situations. The impact of cognitive representations for interpersonal functioning is highlighted, and reciprocal processes between the two are discussed.

A collective constructionist theory of the self proposes that many psychological processes, including enhancement of the self (pervasive in the United States) and criticism and subsequent improvement of the self (widespread in Japan), result from and support the very ways in which social acts and situations are collectively defined and subjectively experienced in the respective cultural contexts. In support of the theory, 2 studies showed, first, that American situations are relatively conducive to self-enhancement and American people are relatively likely to engage in self-enhancement and, second, that Japanese situations are relatively conducive to self-criticism and Japanese people are relatively likely to engage in self-criticism. Implications are discussed for the collective construction of psychological processes implicated in the self and, more generally, for the mutual constitution of culture and the self.

It has been hypothesized that individuals who are high on the attribute of self-criticism are particularly vulnerable to failure stress. To test this hypothesis, we examined the relationship between self-criticism and changes in plasma homovanillic acid (HVA; the metabolite of dopamine) and emotion during exposure to an induced-failure task. Participants consisted of 21 women. Plasma HVA and emotion were assessed at three time points: baseline (T1), during stress exposure (T2), and 40 minutes after cessation of the stressor (T3). We found that self-criticism was significantly and positively related to changes in plasma HVA during stress exposure. In addition, the personality attribute was significantly and positively related to subjective ratings of stress and changes in scores on the Confusion-Bewilderment scale of the Profile of Mood States during the task. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report that self-criticism is related to stress-induced changes in biochemistry.

Maternal criticism explains the outcome variance and the psychiatric status of adolescents during eating disorder treatments. The outcome varies inversely with maternal criticism. Critical mothers are also more overinvolved while fathers are either overinvolved or critical. The use of laxatives increases in patients with critical parents and those with eating disorders not otherwise specified. The levels of Expressed Emotion (EE) are unsteady and change with time. There is no correlation between EE variables and socioeconomic status.

Reports in the public media indicate that intense perfectionism and severe self-criticism played a role in the suicide of three remarkably talented individuals. The role of perfectionism in these suicides is consistent with recent extensive investigations of aspects of perfectionism as well as further analyses of the NIMH Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program (TDCRP), indicating that intense perfectionism interfered significantly with therapeutic response in the various brief treatments for depression. Self-critical individuals, however, made substantial improvement in long-term intensive treatment. These findings suggest the value of considering psychopathology, especially depression, from a psychological rather than a symptomatic perspective; that different patients may be differentially responsive to various types of therapy; and that more extensive therapy may be necessary for many highly perfectionistic, self-critical patients.

This article presents the results of an investigation into the relationship between attributions of self-blame for the death of a loved one and subsequent psychological recovery from this loss. Two hundred and forty-four people who had suffered the death of a loved one identified the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses they used at the time of their loss. Data indicated that use of self-blame was associated with poorer long-term adjustment. However, it was also found that self-blame often led people to make amends or reparations. Significantly, when self-blame was linked to making amends, it became correlated with favorable adjustment outcomes. The potential therapeutic value of reviewing the moral and spiritual beliefs of self-blaming clients and determining how, within their belief system, they might make amends is considered. Key words: blame, grief, guilt, mourning, reparations, It is well documented that emotional traumas can affect physical as well as mental health (Lazarus, 1982; Monat & Lazarus, 1985). Moreover, there is elaborate empirical support for the mediating [...]

Self-criticism is characteristic of individuals who feel unable to live up to standards and ideals and who consequently feel they are personally to blame for this. It has been hypothesized that the development of self-criticism may be related to seeking approval from cold, harsh, demanding, judgmental parents, and the fear losing such approval. To test this hypothesis and the stability of self-criticism as a personality trait, 156 subjects were examined at ages five and 12, and at age 31, 78 of the subjects were located and evaluated again. Mothers were interviewed when children were five as well. It was found that the development of a self-critical personality style was related to early parenting. Parenting styles that communicated restrictiveness and rejection were associated with self-criticism in the child, especially if the rejecting and restrictive parent was the same-sex parent. At age 12, it seemed that same-sex parenting was the most important influence on the development of self-criticism, and it was found that self-criticism was stable from age 12 to age 31 for women only. For men, self-criticism at age 12 was related to inhibition of aggressive impulses at age 31. These results support the theory that the development of self-criticism is tied to early parenting, and further define the relationship. It was also found that for women, the trait is relatively stable over time. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

A questionnaire for measurement of expressed emotion was constructed. It consisted of two scales, criticism and emotional overinvolvement. The questionnaire and the Camberwell Family Interview were then administered to relatives of schizophrenics, and preliminary assessments of scale reliabilities and concurrent validities were done. Both questionnaire scales were reliable. With respect to validity, the criticism scale correctly classified 88% of the subjects relative relative to the criticism scale of the interview. The emotional overinvolvement scale was less satisfactory (67%) but still assisted in classification of over-all expressed emotion. Expressed emotiona, classification by the questionnaire, correctly identified 84% of the subjects with respect to the interview.

Children more advanced in social cognition appear to be more sensitive to teacher criticism. Preschool social cognition especially accounts for unique variance in sensitivity towards personal criticism.

The tripartite model (Clark & Watson, 1991: Clark, L. A., & Watson, D. (1991). Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: Psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 316-336) posits that anxiety and depression share nonspecific features of neuroticism but that somatic arousal appears unique to anxiety, and low positive affect appears unique to depression. The present study controlled for these higher-order effects and evaluated the relative contributions of four, specific lower-order vulnerabilities (anxiety sensitivity, rumination, self-criticism, self-oriented perfectionism). Participants were 38 depressed patients and 38 patients with panic disorder matched as closely as possible for age and gender, and all were diagnosed using the same structured interview by an experienced clinician. Results from hierarchical logistic regression analysis were consistent with predictions from the tripartite model in that only the unique features of arousal and positive affectivity differentiated the two diagnostic groups. At a lower-order level, only anxiety sensitivity (and its facet of fear of physical symptoms) and a ruminative response style demonstrated incremental predictive ability. The discussion focuses on the relationships among these higher-order and lower-order variables, and their potential importance for understanding specific manifestations of psychopathology. [C] 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Depression; Panic disorder; Anxiety sensitivity; Rumination; Perfectionism; Self-criticism

In a sample of 233 university students, Self-critical and Dependent personality styles were each associated with indices of anger.