Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out the gender differences in the roles of marital satisfaction and self-esteem on depression. Also, self-esteem lability was considered as a vulnerability factor for depressive symptomatology. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were used and 112 cases were put into analyses. As a result, the interaction term of marital satisfaction and self-esteem was important in predicting both men and women's depressive symptomatology. However, different aspects of marital satisfaction was important depending on gender. For women, the interaction of dyadic consensus and self-esteem was important in predicting depression, while dyadic consensus concerning enjoyment of life was important in interaction with self-esteem on predicting depressive symptomatology for men. On the other hand, these interactions did not predict the depressive symptomatology 2 weeks later. Stable self-esteem variable was especially not significant. Therefore. the concept of labile self-esteem was put into account, and depressive symptomatology was predicted. As a result. for men, self-esteem lability and its interaction with dysfunctional attitude was important in predicting time2 depression. However, for women, dyadic consensus was the most important variable in predicting time2 depressive symptomatology even after controlling the time1 BDI scores. Dysfunctional attitude alone was the second important variable, and finally, self-esteem lability was important only by interacting with dyadic cohesion in predicting depression. These results have important implication in that when men and women are dissatisfied in their marriage, the dissatisfaction may have different roots, so marital therapy should consider these differences. Also, since the lability of self-esteem was more important in predicting depression for men, gender differences in the effect of stability of self-esteem on depression may exist and these aspects should be taken into account during the process of marital therapy.