The relationships between neuroticism and depressive symptoms

Abstract

A structural equation model designed to estimate the reciprocal associations which may exist between mental state and personality trait variables is presented. This model is applied to measures of neurocticism and depression obtained for a sample of over 1000 women studied over a two year period. The fitted model suggests that while measures of neuroticism are contaminated by the effects of short term mental state on the reporting of personality, there is still a fairly substantial relationship between trait neuroticism (corrected for the effects of mental state contamination) and reports of depressive symptoms.