Associations between interpersonal variables and depressive symptoms were low to moderate.
This finding underscores the conceptual differences between interpersonal traits (e.g., the
interpersonal style of behaving overly friendly toward others) and states of depressive symptoms.
This is in line with other recent studies showing that clinical groups defined by interpersonal
traits in the IPC tradition differ very little in depression severity (Cain et al., 2012). However, the
findings are somewhat different for self-criticism. Patients describing themselves as self-critical
were more severely depressed, especially with regard to cognitive symptoms in the BDI. The
high correlation between self-criticism and depression severity is consistent with findings from
earlier studies