Perceived parental rearing practices in depressed patients in relation to social class

The occurrence of possible differences in rearing practices related to social class has been investigated in a series of 125 depressed patients by means of a special inventory - the EMBU - constructed by our group. Three factors derived from the EMBU in the course of previous studies: "rejection", "emotional warmth", "overprotection" have been taken into account. The rearing practices experienced by subjects belonging to different social classes did not differ concerning "emotional warmth". On the other hand, subjects belonging to the higher social classes scored their parents higher on the variables "rejection" and "overprotection". Since "emotional warmth" proved in an earlier study to discriminate between depressives and healthy controls, it is concluded that the difference cannot have been biased by possible differences in social class.