Abstract
We utilized a short-term, prospective, behavioral high-risk design with a daily diary methodology for assessing daily life events and symptoms in order to examine whether attributional style and the attributional style × events interaction predicted level, within-day, and across-days variability in the depressive disorder subtype, hopelessness depression, but not other depression symptoms. Nondepressed participants at high or low risk for hopelessness depression symptoms based on their attributional styles for positive and negative events provided daily reports of their positive and negative life events and ratings of their highest, lowest, and average point for the day on 20 symptoms of depression vs. mania for 28 days. In accord with the hopelessness theory, attributionally high-risk participants exhibited higher levels and greater within-day variability and also tended to show greater across-days variability of hopelessness depression symptoms, but not other depression symptoms, than attributionally low-risk participants. Across-days variability of hopelessness depression sympotoms was further predicted by the interaction of attributional style and total events (positive + negative), whereas within-day variability was a function of the main effects of attributional style and total events. Finally, as predicted, hopelessness depression symptoms intercorrelated with each other more highly than they correlated with non-hopelessness depression symptoms. The findings are discussed with respect to their implications for the proposed hopelessness subtype of depression.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Abramson, L. Y., Alloy, L. B., & Metalsky, G. I. (1995). Hopelessness depression. In G. M. Buchanan & M. E. P. Seligman (Eds.), Explanatory style (pp. 113–134). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358–372.
Alloy, L. B., Albright, J. S., Reilly, N., Fresco, D., & Whitehouse, W. G. (1996). Cognitive styles and life events as predictors of depressive and hypomanic episodes: A longitudinal study. Manuscript in preparation, Temple University.
Alloy, L. B., & Clements, C. M. (in press). Hopelessness theory of depression: Tests of the symptom component. Cognitive Therapy and Research.
Alloy, L. B., Lipman, A. J., & Abramson, L. Y. (1992). Attributional style as a vulnerability factor for depression: Validation by past history of mood disorders. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 16, 391–407.
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Garbin, M. G. (1988). Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory: Twenty-five years of evaluation. Clinical Psychology Review, 8, 77–100.
Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 561–571.
Bolger, N., DeLongis, A., Kessler, R. C., & Schilling, E. A. (1989). Effects of daily stress on negative mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 808–818.
Bolger, N., & Schilling, E. A. (1991). Personality and the problems of everyday life: The role of neuroticism in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors. Journal of Personality, 59, 355–386.
Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 37–46.
Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis of the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cohen, S., & Edwards, J. R. (1989). Personality characteristics as moderators of the relationship between stress and disorder. In R. W. J. Neufeld (Ed.), Advances in the investigation of psychological stress (pp. 235–283). New York: Wiley.
Craighead, W. E. (1980). Away from a unitary model of depression. Behavior Therapy, 11, 122–128.
Depue, R. A., & Monroe, S. M. (1978). The unipolar-bipolar distinction in the depressive disorders. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 1001–1030.
Depue, R. A., Slater, J. F., Wolfstetter-Kausch, H., Klein, D., Goplerud, E., & Farr, D. (1981). A behavioral paradigm for identifying persons at risk for bipolar depressive disorder: A conceptual framework and five validation studies. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 90, 381–437.
DiNardo, P. A., Barlow, D. H., Cerny, J., Vermilyea, B. B., Vermilyea, J. A., Himadi, W., & Waddell, M. (1985). Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Revised (ADIS-R). Albany, NY: Phobia and Anxiety Disorders Clinic, State University of New York at Albany.
Emmons, R. A., & King, L. A. (1989). Personal striving differentiation and affective reactivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 478–484.
Endicott, J., & Spitzer, R. S. (1978). A diagnostic interview: The schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 837–844.
Gibbon, M., McDonald-Scott, P., & Endicott, J. (1981). Mastering the art of research interviewing: A model training procedure for diagnostic evaluation. New York: Biometrics Research, New York State Psychiatric Institute.
Goplerud, E., & Depue, R. A. (1985). Behavioral response to naturally occurring stress in cyclothymia and dysthymia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 94, 128–139.
Haslam, N., & Beck, A. T. (1994). Subtyping major depression: A taxometric analysis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 686–692.
Huba, G. J., Lawlor, W. G., Stallone, F., & Fieve, R. R. (1976). The use of autocorrelation analysis in the longitudinal study of mood patterns in depressed patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 128, 146–155.
Joiner, T. E., Jr. (1994). Covariance of baseline symptom in prediction of future symptom scores: A methodological note. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 18, 497–504.
Klein, D. F. (1974). Endogenomorphic depression: Conceptual and terminological revision. Archives of General Psychiatry, 31, 447–454.
Kraepelin, E. (1913). Manic-depressive insanity and paranoia. In Textbook of psychiatry (R. M. Barclay, Trans.). Edinburgh, Scotland: Livingstone.
Larsen, R. J. (1987). The stability of mood variability: A spectral analytic approach to daily mood assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1195–1204.
Larsen, R. J., & Diener, E. (1987). Affect intensity as an individual difference characteristic: A review. Journal of Research in Personality, 21, 1–39.
Leber, W. R., Beckham, E. E., & Danker-Brown, P. (1985). Diagnostic criteria for depression. In E. E. Beckham & W. R. Leber (Eds.), Handbook of depression: Treatment, assessment, and research (pp. 343–371). Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.
Metalsky, G. I., Halberstadt, L. J., & Abramson, L. Y. (1987). Vulnerability to depressive mood reactions: Toward a more powerful test of the diathesis-stress and causal mediation components of the reformulated theory of depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 386–393.
Metalsky, G. I., & Joiner, T. E., Jr. (1997). The Hopelessness Depression Symptom Questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 21, 359–384.
Metalsky, G. I., Joiner, T. E., Jr., Hardin, T. S., & Abramson, L. Y. (1993). Depressive reactions to failure in a naturalistic setting: A test of the hopelessness and self-esteem theories of depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 101–109.
Needles, D. J., & Abramson, L. Y. (1990). Positive life events, attributional style, and hopefulness: Testing a model of recovery from depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 156–165.
Penner, L. A., Shiffman, S., Paty, J. A., & Fritzsche, B. A. (1994). Individual differences in intraperson variability in mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 712–721.
Peterson, C., Semmel, A., von Baeyer, C., Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1982). The Attributional Style Questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 6, 287–300.
Seligman, M. E. P., Abramson, L. Y., Semmel, A., & von Baeyer, C. (1979). Depressive attributional style. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 88, 242–247.
Spangler, D. L., Simons, A. D., Monroe, S. M., & Thase, M. E. (1993). Evaluating the hopelessness model of depression: Diathesis-stress and symptom components. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 592–600.
Spitzer, R. S., Endicott, J., & Robins, E. (1978). Research diagnostic criteria: Rationale and reliability. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 773–782.
Stallone, F., Huba, G. J., Lawlor, W. G., & Fieve, R. R. (1973). Longitudinal studies of diurnal variations in depression: A sample of 643 patient days. British Journal of Psychiatry, 123, 311–318.
Wessman, P. D., & Ricks, D. F. (1966). Mood and personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Whisman, M. A., Miller, I. W., Norman, W. H., & Keitner, G. I. (1995). Hopelessness depression in depressed inpatients: Symptomatology, patient characteristics, and outcome. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 19, 263–284.
Whisman, M. A., & Pinto, A. (1997). Hopelessness depression in depressed inpatient adolescents. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 21, 345–358.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Alloy, L.B., Just, N. & Panzarella, C. Attributional Style, Daily Life Events, and Hopelessness Depression: Subtype Validation by Prospective Variability and Specificity of Symptoms. Cognitive Therapy and Research 21, 321–344 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021878516875
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021878516875