The relations of thematic and nonthematic childhood depression measures to defensiveness and gender

The susceptibility of self-report and thematic measures of depression to the effects of a defensive test-taking approach was assessed among 44 child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients. It was hypothesized that scores on a measure of defensiveness would be associated with self-reported but not thematic measures of depression, and furthermore, that this finding would be more pronounced for girls than boys. Patients completed the Lie Scale of the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS), the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), and the Roberts Apperception Test for Children. As predicted, RCMAS-Lie scores were significantly associated with CDI but not Roberts Depression scores, and this effect was more pronounced among females, primarily due to the high CDI scores of nondefensive girls. Implications of results for psychological assessment of children and adolescents are discussed.