Attributional style in depression: A meta-analytic review.

Conducted a meta-analysis of the attribution–depression relation in studies appearing in the clinical, social, personality, and educational literatures. In 104 studies involving nearly 15,000 Ss, several attributional patterns had reliable associations with depression scores. For negative events, attributions to internal, stable, and global causes had a reliable and significant association with depression. Studies in which the attribution factors of ability and luck were measured also showed a reliable association with depression. Ability and luck attribution factors for positive events were also associated with depression. The relations for positive events, however, were weaker than the corresponding ones for negative events. In general, these patterns of relations were independent of a number of potential mediators suggested by authors in this literature, including the type of S studied (psychiatric vs college student), the type of event about which the attribution is made (real vs simulated), the depression measure used, or the publication status of the research report. Conclusions are compared with those of other reviews. Implications for attributional models of depression are discussed. (81 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style and depression in pregnant teenagers

Among industrialized countries, the United States has the highest rates of firearm suicide and homicide, as well as the highest rate of gun ownership. The present study compares the differential impact of gun availability on firearm suicides and homicides in the U.S. Using data from the NCHS Mortality Detail Files (1989-1991), the 1990 U.S. census population estimates, and the General Social Surveys (1989-1991) for nine geographic divisions, we computed rates of firearm and non-firearm suicides and homicides as well as rates of gun ownership for four gender-race groups. We tested the strength of the associations between gun availability and firearm suicide and homicide rates by computing the Spearman correlation coefficients. To help elucidate the role of method substitution, we conducted similar analyses on non-firearm suicide and homicide. The results show that gun ownership has a stronger impact on firearm suicides than homicides. These findings held up after stratifying by gender and race. The study suggests that reducing the aggregate level of gun availability may decrease the risk of firearm-related deaths.     

Attributions for negative life events and depression: The role of perceived control.

Although perceptions of control occupied a central role in the development of learned helplessness theory, recent helplessness research has not considered controllability judgments when relating attributions to depression. Supporting the importance of this construct, the research discussed in this article found evidence that judgments of control interact with other attributions in predicting depression. Specifically, in a prospective study of stress and well-being in adolescence, internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events attributed to uncontrollable causes were found to be positively related to increases in depression (as predicted by the reformulated helplessness theory), but internal and global attributions for negative events attributed to controllable causes were found to be inversely related to increases in depression. The discussion considers the implications of the findings for understanding the nature of the relation between attributions for naturally occurring life events and depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empowering employees: The moderating role of perceived organisational climate and justice.

Previous research suggests that empowering managerial practises have small and variable effects on employees' behaviours. The objective of this study is to assess whether organisational climate and justice perceptions moderate the relationship between supervisor empowering managerial practises (SEMPs) and employees' behavioural empowerment. Self-report data were gathered from a sample of 358 employees from three service-sector organisations in a cross-sectional study. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both perceptions of organisational climate and justice interact with SEMPs in the prediction of employees' behavioural empowerment. As expected, SEMPs were more positively related to behavioural empowerment when perceptions of organisational supportive climate and justice were higher. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision style in depression: The contribution of perceived risks versus benefits.

The present study investigated the contribution of cognitive and social factors to the decision style of depressed persons. During two sessions (Times 1 and 2), depressed and nondepressed college students were asked to imagine themselves making decisions about common life situations that afforded potential benefits but that also entailed potential risks. The decision scenarios varied in content. For each situation, subjects evaluated several potential risks and benefits and indicated what decisions they would make. In both sessions and for all types of decision scenarios, the depressed assigned greater weight to risks than did the nondepressed. Furthermore, for decisions about initiating social contact and establishing intimacy, the depressed expressed a greater reluctance to take the target action than did the nondepressed, and their perceptions of risks appeared to influence their estimated decisions more strongly. The Time 2 study also revealed that most of these differences applied equally when individuals were thinking about themselves or another person. However, risk perceptions were found to contribute more to the decision style of the depressed, relative to the nondepressed, only when their thoughts were focused on themselves and not when their thoughts were focused on another person. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style, depression, and perceptions of consensus for events.

This study examined the differences between depressed and nondepressed individuals' implicit perceptions of consensus, which may contribute to differences in their attributional styles. Subjects rated the extent to which positive, negative, and neutral events happen to themselves and to the average college student and completed measures of depth of depression and attributional style. Perceptions of consensus were highly correlated with all components of attributional style for negative and positive events. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that ratings of others explained variance in attributional style beyond that explained by ratings of the self for positive but not for negative events. Path analyses, however, indicated that the indirect path from perceptions of consensus to depression mediated through attributional style was nonsignificant for positive events, although it was significant for negative events. These findings are discussed in terms of the role of perceptions of others as precursors of attributional style and depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Helplessness and depression in rheumatoid arthritis.

Found that scores on a measure of helplessness mediated the relationship between severe, disabling rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and depression in 106 RA patients (aged 23–81 yrs). This association was independent of a previously demonstrated correlation between cognitive distortion and depression in RA patients. However, the association between disease severity and depression was mediated by Ss' views of their ability to control or cope with their disease. Both helplessness and cognitive distortion may be important factors in the development and treatment of depression among RA patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chronic pain and depression: role of perceived impact and perceived control in different age cohorts

Chronic pain adversely affects individuals' physical as well as emotional well-being. A cognitive-behavioral model has been proposed to explain the role of cognitive appraisal variables in mediating the development of emotional distress following pain of long duration. There is little evidence linking the prevalence of depression in chronic pain patients to life stage, but there are suggestions in the literature that the link between medical illness and depression may be stronger in elderly patients. One purpose of this study was to replicate the efficacy of a previous study of the cognitive-behavioral mediation model in explaining the association between pain and depressed affect. A second purpose of this study was to extend the cognitive-behavioral model to evaluate relationships among pain, cognitive appraisal variables, and depressive affect in the elderly chronic pain population. One hundred chronic pain patients were divided into two age groups (< or = 69 years and > or = 70 years). A path analysis conducted for the total sample supported the cognitive-behavioral mediation model of depression in chronic pain, in which cognitive appraisal variables mediate the pain-depression relationship. Correlations among variables in each of the two age groups, however, revealed different patterns of association. Consistent with the cognitive-behavioral model, the younger patients demonstrated a low and non-significant correlation between pain severity and depression (r = 0.01). Conversely, a strong direct association was observed in the older patients between these variables (r = 0.51). These results suggest that the relationship between pain and depression varies substantially depending upon age cohort.     

Pain coping strategies and depression in rheumatoid arthritis.

A study was conducted to examine the role of pain episodes and the role of active and passive pain coping strategies in depicting depression in 287 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The independent effects of pain and pain coping strategies, as well as the interaction effects between pain and pain coping strategies on depression, were evaluated cross-sectionally and prospectively over a 6-month interval. The cross-sectional findings revealed that pain, passive coping, and the interaction between pain and passive coping contributed independent variance, all accounting for higher depression. Of principal interest was the finding that the frequent use of passive pain coping strategies in the face of high pain contributed to the most severe level of depression over time. These results were obtained after controlling for the potentially confounding effects of prior depression, functional disability, and medication status. These data imply that there may be a potential benefit of developing techniques to reduce the use of passive pain coping strategies to deal with chronic arthritis pain in cognitive–behavioral pain management programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style in pathological gamblers in treatment.

Preliminary studies highlight the importance of depression and life trauma in a subset of pathological gamblers. This article presents data on the tendency of pathological gamblers to attribute the outcome of events to internal, stable and global causes, as postulated by the reformulated learned helplessness model of depression. There was a positive relation between measures of depression and the tendency to attribute negative events to internal, global and stable causes. Severity of gambling prior to treatment and attributional style both made significant contributions to the prediction of severity of gambling on a 6-month follow-up. Measures of depression did not have predictive value. The implications of these findings for future research with addicted patients are briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive distortion in rheumatoid arthritis: Relation to depression and disability.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is often accompanied by significant levels of depression and disability. Previous research has demonstrated that cognitive distortions are related to depression and disability in other chronic pain conditions. Our study tested the relevance of Beck's model to RA by examining the relation between cognitive distortion, as measured by the Cognitive Error Questionnaire, and both self-reported and interview-rated depression and disability in 92 RA patients. Even when disease severity was controlled, cognitive distortion was significantly associated with depression. Although cognitive distortion was also related to physical disability, this relation was smaller. The results are discussed in terms of the potential relevance of Beck's model to the treatment of depression and disability in RA patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style of lonely and depressed people.

Compared the attributional styles of lonely and nonlonely people and of depressed and nondepressed people in 2 studies. A questionnaire was formed, consisting of 20 hypothetical situations. Half of the situations were interpersonal, and half were not; half described successful outcomes, and half described failures. S selected an attributional alternative that best explained the outcome. The questionnaire was administered to 304 college students, along with the Beck Depression Inventory and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Results show that lonely and depressed people ascribe interpersonal failures to unchangeable characterological defects in themselves (e.g., a lack of ability). Because the prototype of a lonely person is more singularly interpersonal than is the prototype of a depressed person, it was hypothesized that loneliness would show higher correlations with the attributional style. This hypothesis was confirmed in Study 2 with approximately 200 college students. Findings were replicated using a modified version of the questionnaire. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder.

This study examined the relations of attributions for good and bad events on the one hand and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the other. The sample consisted of 262 Israeli soldiers who suffered a combat stress reaction episode during the 1982 Lebanon War and were followed 2 and 3 years after their participation in combat. Cross-sectional analyses revealed significant relations between attributions and PTSD at the two points of assessment. Changes in PTSD from Time 1 to Time 2 were also associated with changes in attribution. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style and depressive symptoms among children.

The reformulation of helplessness theory proposes that an insidious attributional style accompanies and predisposes depressive symptoms. The present study investigated predictions of the reformulation among 96 8–13 yr olds who completed the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and Children's Depression Inventory twice, 6 mo apart. 83 of their parents completed the adult ASQ and the Beck Depression Inventory at their children's 2nd testing. Children who attributed bad events to internal, stable, and global causes were more likely to report depressive symptoms than were children who attributed these events to external, unstable, and specific causes. This depressive attributional style predicted depressive symptoms 6 mo later, suggesting that it may be a risk factor for depression. Children's attributional style for bad events and their depressive symptoms converged with those of their mothers but not their fathers. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Symbolic immortality and the management of the terror of death: The moderating role of attachment style.

Three studies were designed to examine the contribution of R. J. Lifton's (1979) symbolic immortality construct to the management of the terror of death and to investigate whether attachment style may underlie this contribution. Using a sample of 420 Israeli students, Study 1 revealed an inverse correlation between self-reports of symbolic immortality and fear of personal death. This finding was validated in Study 2 (N?=?120), which found that high symbolic immortality reduced the effects of a death salience manipulation on the level of punishment given to a social transgressor. Study 3 (N?=?270) refined the association between symbolic immortality and fear of death. The inverse correlation found in Study 1 was revealed only among securely attached persons. The discussion emphasizes the interconnectedness between personality, symbolic immortality, and the management of the terror of death. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional and social comparison processes in depression.

In this study we examined the consequences for depressed and nondepressed individuals of receiving comparison feedback regarding their causal understanding of an event. Specifically, the effects of similar, dissimilar, or no-comparison feedback on depressed and nondepressed subjects' evaluations of the comparison other and on their feelings about themselves were investigated. Because the reduction of uncertainty about one's conception of social reality is a major motive underlying social-comparison processes, we expected that depressed individuals, who are assumed to have experienced heightened uncertainty associated with frequent exposure to uncontrollable life events, would be more motivated to engage in social comparison and would be more sensitive to social-comparison feedback. Results generally were consistant with this reasoning. The implications of the results in terms of the development and maintenance of depression were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style in clinically depressed and conduct disordered adolescents.

We tested the reformulated learned helplessness theory of depression with adolescent inpatients (N?=?63) who were diagnosed by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980) criteria as depressed, or conduct disordered, or both. Adolescents with major depression diagnoses differed from nondepressed adolescents with significantly lower attributional style scores for positive events. The study also evaluated the relation of self-reported depression, anxiety, and social maladjustment to attributional style. Subjects who reported more severe depression had a significantly lower composite score for internal, stable, and global attributions for positive events. The composite of internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events was not significantly related to either diagnosed or self-reported depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style and the generality of learned helplessness.

According to the logic of the attribution reformulation of learned helplessness, the interaction of 2 factors influences whether helplessness experienced in one situation will transfer to a new situation. The model predicts that people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to global factors will show helplessness deficits in new situations that are either similar or dissimilar to the original situation in which they were helpless. In contrast, people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to only specific factors will show helplessness deficits in situations that are similar, but not dissimilar, to the original situation in which they were helpless. To test these predictions, 2 studies were conducted in which undergraduates with either a global or specific attributional style for negative outcomes (as measured by the Attributional Style Questionnaire) were given 1 of 3 pretreatments in the typical helplessness triadic design: controllable bursts of noise, uncontrollable bursts of noise, or no noise. Ss were also administered the Beck Depression Inventory. In Exp I, 108 Ss were tested for helplessness deficits in a test situation similar to the pretreatment setting, whereas in Exp II, 60 Ss were tested in a test situation dissimilar to the pretreatment setting. Findings are consistent with predictions of the reformulated helplessness theory. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's preference for challenge: The role of perceived competence and control.

This research tested the hypothesis that children's perceptions of academic competence and their personal control over school-related performance affect subsequent intrinsic interest and preference for challenge in an evaluative setting. In a correlational study, children's self-reported perceptions of academic competence and personal control were found to relate positively to their intrinsic interest in schoolwork and preference for challenging school activities. A subset of this sample was exposed to varying levels of a controlling directive, and preference for challenge was assessed behaviorally during a free-choice period in which subjects were unaware that they were being observed. As predicted, the data indicated that when given the evaluative, controlling directive, children who had high perceptions of academic competence and control preferred a greater challenge than did children whose perceptions were low on these measures. No difference between groups in terms of preference for challenge was evident when no controlling directive was presented. These findings are discussed in terms of theories of intrinsic motivation and potential processes that underly these effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style and attributional patterns among married couples.

Explored whether couples develop an attributional style in explaining marital behavior. Results demonstrate that spouses vary greatly in the extent to which they develop an attributional style in this area. Development of an attributional style is correlated with marital distress. Investigators have assumed that simultaneous attributional ratings across several attributional dimensions best characterize the attributions that spouses make for marital events. Yet almost all studies to date have considered each attributional dimension separately. The current investigation explored whether meaningful attributional patterns across dimensions were discernible for marital events. Findings indicate that such patterns do exist and are psychologically interpretable, and support the hypothesis that distressed spouses tend to maximize negative partner behaviors while minimizing positive partner behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)