Depression fails to scar personality.

Researchers have found that people who suffer from major depression frequently exhibit personality traits such as introversion, a clinging dependency on others, and neuroticism, which is characterized by chronic emotional distress and a tendency to give up or cope poorly in the face of stressful situations.

Studies to date have not established whether these traits render people more vulnerable to becoming depressed or whether they to some extent represent personality scars inflicted by depression.

A new investigation finds that, in the long run, personality shows no sign of scars after a typical episode of major depression. However, repeated or unusually long bouts of this disorder may indeed exert a lasting impact, contends a research team headed by psychologist M. Tracie Shea of Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, R.I.

"The role of personality in depression [of moderate duration and severity] is more consistent with the vulnerability model than with the scar hypothesis," the scientists conclude.

Shea and her coworkers drew on a large sample of relatives, spouses, and community residents recruited as part of a national study of people who had been diagnosed with depression or other mood disorders. All participants granted psychiatric interviews and filled out extensive personality questionnaires on two occasions, 6 years apart, when they exhibited good mental health.

In a group with no prior incidents of any mental disorder, 28 people suffered their first episode of major depression in the period between the two interviews; 528 remained free of psychological conditions during that time. In an expanded group, which included people having prior mental disorders but no history of mood disorders, 94 experienced an initial bout of major depression between interviews and 708 stayed free of mental disorders.

No evidence of personality change sparked by depression emerged in either group, Shea's team reports in the November American Journal of Psychiatry. For instance, depressed individuals did not lose self-confidence in dealing with others, become more withdrawn, or report more neuroticism at the second interview.

Those who experienced more than one episode of depression in that time, however, cited a statistically significant rise in their emotional reliance on others. Moreover, those whose depressive bouts lasted more than a few months cited substantial drops in feelings of sociability and outgoingness.

Episodes of major depression may also evoke temporary boosts in neuroticism, the researchers note. An earlier study, directed by psychiatrist Kenneth S. Kendler of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, found that women displayed moderate increases in neuroticism for several months after recovering from an initial period of depression.

Kendler and his colleagues are now completing an extended study of personality and depression comparable to the one directed by Shea.

"Major depression and neuroticism may be influenced by a common genetic mechanism," Kendler proposes. Genes affect broad predispositions, such as sensitivity to stress, that interact with many biological and environmental factors to influence mood and behavior, he asserts.