Pessimistic attributional style: Is it specific to depression versus anxiety versus negative affect?

doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(97)00027-2

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Volume 35, Issue 8, August 1997, Pages 703-719

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(97)00027-2 Get rights and content

Abstract

Two studies with college students explored the relationship of a pessimistic attributional style to positive and negative affect, as well as to depressed and anxious mood. Both studies revealed that a pessimistic attributional style was correlated with negative affect and depressed mood, but was unrelated to low levels of positive affect. The second study also showed a correlation with anxiety and that the association of pessimistic attributional style with emotional distress occurs for both depression-relevant (i.e. loss/failure) as well as anxiety-relevant (i.e. threatening) events. The second study also provided a longitudinal test of the diathesis-stress component of the reformulated helplessness theory. Results supported the hypothesis that pessimistic attributional style is a nonspecific diathesis for symptoms of both anxiety and depression. Implications for these findings for cognitive theories of depression are addressed.

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Cited by (57)

Contributions of fixed mindsets and hopelessness to anxiety and depressive symptoms: A commonality analysis approach
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Fixed mindsets (beliefs that personal traits are unchangeable) show consistent associations with internalizing symptoms. However, the mindset-internalizing symptom link has previously been studied in isolation of other maladaptive cognitions that relate to internalizing symptoms. Thus, the unique contributions of mindsets to internalizing symptoms remains unclear.
We used commonality analysis (CA), which yields unique and shared effects of independent variables on an outcome, to assess unique contributions of emotion and anxiety mindsets to anxiety and depression symptoms, relative to the contributions of hopelessness. Participants in two online studies (Ns=200, 430) self-reported depression and anxiety symptoms, hopelessness, and emotion and anxiety mindsets.
In Study 1, neither mindset type contributed unique variance to depression or anxiety beyond the contribution of hopelessness. In Study 2, emotion mindsets again explained no unique symptom variance. Anxiety mindsets uniquely contributed 2.0% and 6.5% of depression and anxiety variance, respectively—but far larger proportions of symptom variance (20.0%-60.9%) were contributed by hopelessness alone, variance shared by hopelessness and anxiety mindsets, and variance shared among hopelessness, anxiety mindsets, and emotion mindsets.
The cross-sectional design precludes causal conclusions, and the non-referred adult samples may limit generalizability.
Mindsets contributed little unique variance to internalizing symptoms beyond hopelessness. Interventions teaching growth mindsets have been shown to reduce internalizing problem in past studies. However, these interventions might not necessarily operate by shaping mindsets; rather, they may affect symptom change by shaping closely-linked maladaptive cognitions—like hopelessness—with stronger ties to internalizing distress.
The development and initial validation of a new scale to measure explanatory style
2015, Personality and Individual Differences
Citation Excerpt :
This is the first study that has attempted to address the structural validity of a measure of explanatory style by reformatting the ASQ in this way, and is thus the first study that has been successful in achieving acceptable structural validity for a measure of explanatory style using EFA techniques, and confirming the structure with CFA techniques. Further, the initial partial concurrent, convergent, and divergent validity results found in Phase 2 replicates previous research into the construct validity of explanatory style with other outcome variables, in particular generally finding no significant direct or indirect associations between the causal-locus dimension and outcome variables (Luten et al., 1997; Michelson et al., 1997; Volpe & Levin, 1998). Finally, this is the first study to report incremental validity for a measure of explanatory style.
The reformulated learned helplessness (RLH) theory and its associated construct of explanatory style have been tested extensively using the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ: Peterson et al., 1982) against outcomes such as depression. However, support for the RLH theory is best described as inconclusive. This is because: (a) the causal-locus dimension is poorly defined and the causal-locus items have poor reliability and validity; (b) the ASQ has not been demonstrated to have structural validity; and (c) the definitions of explanatory style are inconsistent across studies. The current study was conducted with the goal of developing a valid and reliable measure of explanatory style. The new measure met simple structure when tested using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and each short subscale had acceptable internal reliability. Further, construct validity was partially demonstrated, but incremental validity was not supported. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
A longitudinal twin and sibling study of the hopelessness theory of depression in adolescence and young adulthood
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The Relationship Between Self/Value Discrepancies and Anxiety: The Mediation Effect of Depressogenic Attributional Style
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Increasing Choices or Decreasing Hope? Explaining the Rising Prevalence of Depression From a Decision-Making Perspective
2022, Psychological Reports

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Invited essayPessimistic attributional style: Is it specific to depression versus anxiety versus negative affect?

Abstract

Clinical Psychology Review

Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression

Psychological Review

Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

The specificity of attributional style and expectations to positive and negative affectivity, depression, and anxiety

Cognitive Therapy and Research

Comorbidity in anxiety and depressive disorders: A helplessness/hopelessness perspective

Personal religious orientation and prejudice

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Anxiety and its disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic

Disorders of emotion

Psychological Inquiry

Psychosocial functioning and depression: Distinguishing among antecedents, concomitants, and consequences

Psychological Bulletin

The religious experience: A social-psychological perspective

Depression: Clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects

Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders

Depression inventory

Screening depressed patients in family practice: A rapid technique

Post-Graduate Medicine

Anxiety disorders and phobias: A cognitive perspective

An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: Psychometric properties

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

An inventory for measuring depression

Archives of General Psychiatry

Attachment and loss (vol. 3), Loss: Sadness and depression

Cognitive foundations of clinical psychology

Cognitive therapy of anxiety and depression

Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: Psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Theoretical and empirical issues differentiating depression from anxiety

General affective dispositions in physical and psychological health

Applied multiple regression/correlation: Analysis for the behavioral sciences

Self-reported distress: Analog or ersatz depression?

Psychological Bulletin

Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests

Psychometrika

Invited essay
Pessimistic attributional style: Is it specific to depression versus anxiety versus negative affect?