The association between rejection and depression in the context of women’s relationships with their parents

The relation between rejection and depression was examined in the context of college students’ relationships with their parents. Female college students (n = 183) provided selfreports of how rejected they felt by their parents, and parents provided self-reports of how rejecting they were of their daughters. In father–daughter dyads, we found that fathers’ reports of rejection moderated the relation between women’s reports of rejection and depression. In mother–daughter dyads, we found that daughters’ reports of rejection, but not mothers’ reports of rejection, was associated with depression. These findings suggest that relationship factors may be critical for understanding depression, and that the role of rejection in depression can only be understood by taking into account the nature of the relationship.