Abstract
The reformulated model of learned helplessness and depression postulates that depressed patients will attribute the causes of negative outcomes to internal, global, and stable factors. They may also make maladaptive attributions about the causes of positive outcomes. In the present study, the specificity of these attributional patterns to depressed patients was examined by comparing Attributional Style Questionnaire scores of samples of depressed patients (diagnosed as dysthymic disorder), anxiety disorder patients, and normals. Support for the reformulated model was evident for attributions of negative outcomes. Dysthymic patients demonstrated the hypothesized attributional pattern for negative outcomes, but anxiety patients did so only if they were also depressed. The attributions of dysthymic patients for positive outcomes did not differ from those of normal subjects, but several differences arose between the attributions for positive outcomes of highly depressed dysthymic patients and those of nondepressed anxious patients. Findings are compared to previous research, and implications of these results for the study of cognitive factors in anxiety disorders are discussed.
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Heimberg, R.G., Vermilyea, J.A., Dodge, C.S. et al. Attributional Style, depression, and anxiety: An evaluation of the specificity of depressive attributions. Cogn Ther Res 11, 537–550 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01183857
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01183857