Recent theoretical and empirical work suggests that precipitating and individual susceptibility factors are involved in the development of depression. This etiological issue was reexamined within a college population. A comprehensive assessment technique, the behavioral-analytic methodology, was used to collect over 1,000 written descriptions of problematic situations by students (N=604) which they reported had resulted in depressive experiences. These situations were reduced by thematic content, rewritten, and administered to a new sample of 312 students. The latter sample rated experience with and individual susceptibility to these situations and then completed the Beck Depression Inventory. Results of discriminant function analyses indicated that heightened susceptibility, in combination with the experience of particular environmental events, optimally differentiated depressed from nondepressed students. The findings suggest that the application of this methodology to the investigation of such factors in other target populations may have heuristic value. (Author/NRB)