The relevance of mitigated and unmitigated agency and communion for depression vulnerabilities and dysphoria.

This research tested the relation of agency, communion, and their unmitigated counterparts to the depression vulnerabilities of sociotropy and autonomy, and the role of these variables in predicting dysphoria. In Study 1, agency was unrelated to autonomy but inversely related to sociotropy, whereas communion was positively related to sociotropy and inversely related to autonomy. In Study 2, agency was unrelated and unmitigated agency was positively related to autonomy, whereas communion and unmitigated communion were positively related to sociotropy. After controlling for vulnerabilities, agency was inversely related to measures of dysphoria and negative affect, whereas unmitigated agency was positively related to dysphoria and negative affect. Only agency and communion were related to positive affect.