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Depression and attribution: Some new data and a review of old data

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Abstract

Depressed, formerly depressed, and never depressed college women were randomly assigned to success or failure conditions on a supposed measure of “accurate empathy.” Based on the Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale (1978)theory, it was predicted that depressed subjects would favor internal, stable attributions for failure and external, unstable attributions for success. Consistent with previous research, depressed subjects made more internal attributions for failure than did never depressed subjects. In absolute terms, however, they favored external over internal attributions for failure and internal over external attributions for success. Depressed subjects tended to favor stable attributions for both success and failure. These results were compared with previously published ones, and it was concluded that there is, at best, inconsistent evidence that depressives attribute failure internally and that there is relatively clear evidence that they do not attribute success externally and unstably.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, State University of New York, 13901, Binghamton, New York, USA

    David C. Zuroff

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  1. David C. Zuroff
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This paper is based on portions of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Connecticut, 1977. The research was supported by grants from the University of Connecticut's Research Foundation and Computing Center. I wish to extend sincere thanks for the guidance and encouragement of J. Conrad Schwarz, my major advisor, and of other members of my committee, Julian B. Rotter and Charles A. Lowe. I am also indebted to my research assistants, Bob Haku, Vernon Johnson, Jon Levine, Bob Ormsby, Paul Thayer, and Rusty Watson. Steve Lisman and Debbie Moskowitz offered helpful comments on a draft of the manuscript.

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Zuroff, D.C. Depression and attribution: Some new data and a review of old data. Cogn Ther Res 5, 273–281 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01193411

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