Evaluating Stability and Change in Personality and Depression

Critics have argued that personality factors believed to represent a vulnerability to depression are not stable and are therefore state dependent. However, conclusions regarding the stability of personality and the relation between personality and depression have been drawn (a) without differentiating relative stability among individual differences from absolute stability of change scores and (b) without explicitly modeling change in personality as a function of change in depression. The relation between neuroticism and depression was examined in a sample of depressed outpatients ( N = 71) receiving a 5-week trial of pharmacotherapy. Measures of neuroticism and extraversion demonstrated both relative stability and absolute change, and changes in neuroticism and extraversion scores were modestly or not at all accounted for by changes in depression scores. Claims that personality scores are not stable and are state dependent must be reconsidered.