This literature has developed along several distinct lines: (a) early clinical psychiatrists’ descriptions of affective temperaments; (b) research on the structure and neurobiology of personality; (c) psychoanalytic and cognitive-behavioral theory and observations; and (d) developmental psychologists’ work on temperament. In recent years, there has been substantial convergence between these lines of work, and it is increasingly possible to view them within a single integrative framework. Understanding the associations between personality and depression has a number of potentially important implications for research and practice. First, personality traits associated with emotional experience, expression, and regulation may be intermediate phenotypes that provide more tractable targets for genetic and neurobiological research than depressive diagnoses (Canli 2008). Second, personality may be useful in identifying more homogeneous subgroups of depressive disorders that differ in developmental trajectories and etiological influences (e.g., Beck 1983). Third, tracing the pathways between personality and depressive disorders can help elucidate more proximal processes involved in the development of mood disorders (Compas et al. 2004, Klein et al. 2008a, Lahey 2009). Fourth, personality may be useful in tailoring treatment (Zinbarg et al. 2008)
