INFLUENCE OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS ON SOCIAL CONFORMITY, SELF - CONCEPT CLARITY AND RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION

Abstract

The present study is intended to find out the influence of depressive symptoms on social conformity, self-concept clarity and relationship satisfaction among individuals. The sample consisted of 65 individuals between the age group of 18 to 28 years. A detailed Information Schedule, Beck’s Depression Inventory (Beck, 1996), Martin-Larsen Approval Motivation scale (Larsen et al., 1976), Self-Concept Clarity scale (Campbell et al., 1996) and Relationship Assessment scale (Hendrick, 1988) was administered on the subjects individually, which on collection was analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test. It was computed among groups, which were classified on the basis of the levels of depressive symptoms. Results showed that while there exists no significant difference in social conformity and relationship satisfaction, an inverse relationship of depressive symptoms and self-concept clarity has been observed with varying levels of depressive symptoms among the individuals, i.e., individuals with higher level of depressive symptoms have lower level of self-concept clarity.