title: Pessimistic attributional style: is it specific to depression versus anxiety versus negative affect?
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive Medicine, Rush-Presbyterian St, Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Luten
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ralph
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mineka
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001290:Attitude; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D012044:Regression Analysis