Depression 341
basis of their judgment of the desirability or un- desirability of the item content (4, p92; 75). The BDI correlates with other self-report measures of maladaptive functioning (29) and so may in part reflect general “negative affect” (8). Langevin and Stancer argued that this, together with the results of factor analytic studies, demonstrate that the BDI reflects a social undesirability response set rather than depression (76). Beck responded that people who are depressed tend toward low self-image; this indicates psychopathology and so the two are inherently con- founded. He pointed to the agreement between the BDI and clinical ratings of depression to suggest that the validity of the scale is not reduced by the negative response set among depressed people (5, p207).