Abstract: Research on personality vulnerability to depression is focused upon the concepts of dependency-self- criticism, sociotropy-autonomy, and perfectionism. This article reviewed theories and studies concerning the features and structures of the vulnerable personality, the relations among personality, stress-situation and depression, the relations among vulnerable personality, normal personality and the depression symptoms, the maladaptive nature of the personality vulnerability and so on. While continuing in these directions, future study should consider a bottom up approach to reexplore the personality vulnerability in different culture context and a new way to develop the existing study by integrating the cognitive vulnerability research

Key words: personality vulnerability, depression, dependency, self-criticism, sociotropy, autonomy