Abstract
Depressed, schizophrenic, and well low-income, African-American women were studied in an effort to extend previous hypotheses of the association between depression and the two personality constructs of low self-esteem and externality to this population. Subjects were 113 low income African-American women including 26 who had been diagnosed as depressed, 54 diagnosed as schizophrenic, and 33 well women. Locus of control was measured with the Adult Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale (Nowicki & Duke, 1974). Self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Contrary to prediction, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but not depression, was associated with more external locus of control. For self-esteem, severity of disturbance, rather than diagnosis, seemed to be of primary importance. Also, lower self-esteem scores were correlated significantly with higher levels of externality for both depressed and schizophrenic women but not for well controls. The present study indicates that self-esteem and locus of control are related to depression differently in low socio-economic status (SES) African-American women than in previously studied middle SES depressed whites. The findings emphasize the need for more normative studies to clarify the complex relations among SES, race, emotional disturbance, self-esteem, and locus of control.
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This study was supported by Grant 1 RO1 MH 25042-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the senior author. We would like to thank the staff at Project PACT who gathered the data and all of the families who participated. The comments of anonymous reviewers were helpful in revising the manuscript.
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Goodman, S.H., Cooley, E.L., Sewell, D.R. et al. Locus of control and self-esteem in depressed, low-income African-American women. Community Ment Health J 30, 259–269 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02188886
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02188886