Depression and Trait Distinctiveness in the Self-Schema

College students preselected by level of depression made both self-descriptiveness and other-descriptiveness ratings for the same set of 60 trait adjectives, 30 of which were characteristics of depressives, while 30 other features were more typical of nondepressives. By rating each trait for both targets, it was possible to subdivide self-descriptive items into those that were also descriptive of other people versus those that were descriptive of self alone. Mild depressives had more negative “self-only” traits in their self-concepts than was the case for normals. However, normals and depressives did not differ for positive “self-only” traits, nor for either positive or negative mutually descriptive features. It appears that the negative content in a depressive's self-concept is specific and personal.