2008 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 141-148
The present study examined the relationship among conscious defensiveness, cynical hostility, and depression in university students. Participants were 642 university students, 418 men and 224 women. They completed a battery of questionnaires that included Cynicism Questionnaire (CQ) to measure cynical hostility, Conscious Defensiveness Questionnaire (CDQ) for conscious defensiveness, and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) for depression. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that cynical hostility significantly predicted depression in men, while extremely high levels of cynical hostility tended to be associated with high levels of depression in low conscious defensive women. These findings were discussed in terms of interpersonal conflicts that women with high cynical hostility and low conscious defensiveness would experience.
