A "feminine" model of vulnerability to depressive symptoms: a longitudinal investigation of middle-aged women.

The authors hypothesized that having traits associated with the female gender role is related to psychological distress in women. Specifically, they investigated the effect of low instrumentality and high expressivity, private self-consciousness, and anger-in on depressive symptoms measured 3 years later in 460 middle-aged women during the menopausal transition and times of stress. Multivariate analyses showed that after adjustment for depressive symptoms and educational level at study entry, depressive symptomatology 3 years later was higher among women who were low in instrumentality and high in self-consciousness at study entry. Women who were self-conscious were the most vulnerable to a subsequent ongoing stressor, and women who tended to suppress angry feelings and who used hormone replacement therapy when they were postmenopausal had more symptomatology than did other women. The study shows that midlife may be problematic for women with certain female gender role traits.