Personality and depression: evidence of a possible mediating role for anger trait in the relationship between cooperativeness and depression

Background: An increasingly growing area of empirical research has found consistent links between anger, depression, and temperament and character domains of personality, separately. However, precise nature of these relationships remains still unclear, and little is known about its underlying processes. Objectives: The aim of our explorative research was to conduct a more detailed investigation into the relationships among depression, anger trait, and personality characteristics based on Cloninger's 7-factor personality theory in healthy individuals. Method: In this preliminary study, 230 Italian undergraduates were investigated by using the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised, the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2, and the Beck Depression Inventory–II. Depression and cooperativeness were expected to have a negative and significant relationship and separate relationships with the trait-anger. Theoretically, a new hypothesis was that the trait-anger would mediate the relationship between depression and cooperativeness. Results: Zero-order and partial correlations and a path analysis based on Baron and Kenny's method (J Pers Soc Psychol.1986;51:1173-1182) for calculating multiple regression analyses were calculated. Consistent with the hypotheses, cooperativeness and depression were strongly associated; the trait-anger was significantly associated with both cooperativeness and depression, and the mediation model fit the data. Conclusions: Behaviors related to the trait-anger could help to explain how depression and reduced cooperativeness are related each other.