Depression and attributions for problems and solutions in college students

50 adult clients at college counseling centers completed scales measuring depression, attributions for their primary problem and its expected improvement, and locus of control. Subjects who were more depressed made relatively internal and stable attributions for their primary problems, were less likely to believe they would improve, and expressed more belief in the importance of chance and powerful others. As a group, subjects tended to view their improvement as more internal and controllable than the cause of their problems. The results suggest that knowledge of clients' attributions for their problems could prove relevant to the treatment of depression.     

Objective self-awareness,self-esteem and causal attributions for success and failure

A study using 174 males was conducted to examine the effects of objective self-awareness on causal attributions for success and failure. It was predicted that individual's level of self-esteem would mediate the effects of focus of attention on causal attributions. The results showed that attention to the self increased the dispositional attributions made by low self-esteem subjects in failure conditions, and of high self-esteem subjects in success conditions. The implications of the findings for the theory of objective self-awareness and causal attribution processes are discussed.     

Depression, low self-esteem and mindfulness

Negative biases in processing information about the self have long been recognised as a central feature in the development and maintenance of clinical depression. In practice, however, it may not be easy to distinguish between patients whose negative thinking about the self is primarily an aspect of current mood state, and those for whom it represents a reflection of more enduring issues (low self-esteem). The paper speculates that, in both cases, metacognitive awareness (acceptance of the idea that thoughts, assumptions and beliefs are mental events and processes rather than reflections of objective truth) may be an important precursor to active engagement in therapy on the part of the patient, and considers what aspects of cognitive therapy might be used to promote it in clinical practice.     

Depression and causal attributions for success and failure

The present study investigated the effects of depression on causal attributions for success and failure. Specifically, female university students were separated into depressed and nondepressed groups on the basis of Costello--Comrey Depression Scale scores, and then received either 20%, 55%, or 80% reinforcement on a word association task. Following the task, attributions were made for outcome using the four factors of effort, ability, task difficulty, and luck. In accord with predictions generated from a self-serving biases hypothesis, nondepressives made internal (ability, effort) attributions for a successful outcome (80% reinforcement) and external attributions (luck, task difficulty) for a failure outcome (20% reinforcement). As predicted from consideration of the self-blame component of depression, the attributions made by depressives for a failure outcome were personal or internal. Contrary to expectations, depressives also made internal attributions for a successful outcome. The findings for depressives were discussed in relation to the recently revised learned helplessness model of depression, which incorporates causal attributions. For nondepressives, the findings were considered in terms of the self-serving biases hypothesis.     

Exploring attributions in natural settings: Gender and self-esteem effects

Two studies investigated the attributions of undergraduates for the outcomes of satisfying and dissatisfying achievement events that occurred naturally over the course of a 3-week period. In both studies, women with low performance self-esteem gave less ego-enhancing attributions than high self-esteem women, high self-esteem men, or low self-esteem men. Also, in Study 2 high self-esteem subjects attributed greater stability to causes of satisfying events than to causes of dissatisfying events, whereas low self-esteem subjects gave both types of events equivalent stability ratings. Both studies provide evidence of consistent individual differences in attributional style across occasions and situations. The gender differences were interpreted in the context of sex-role socialization factors and Anderson and Slusher's (1986) two-stage model of the attribution process.     

Depression, self-esteem, and the absence of self-protective attributional biases

Previous research has demonstrated a relation between depression and attributional style. In the present study we evaluated the extent to which self-esteem may be an important determinant of attributional style. Subjects completed measures of self-esteem, depression, and anxiety and responded to the Attributional Style Questionnaire. Maximum R2 analyses revealed that for significant one-variable and multivariable regression models, self-esteem accounted for the variation in attributional style on the majority of outcome measures. Depression and anxiety added little beyond the contribution of self-esteem. These findings were consistent for both positive and negative events. In addition, self-esteem accounted for variation in attributional evenhandedness. Results are discussed in terms of the role of self-esteem maintenance in attributional style.     

Depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem: accounting for suicidality in adolescent psychiatric inpatients

The present study was designed to examine depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem as related to suicidal behavior in three groups of depressed adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Depressed adolescents who had never attempted suicide were compared to depressed adolescents who had attempted suicide once and to depressed adolescents who had attempted suicide on several different occasions. Results showed that suicidal adolescents experienced significantly greater depression and hopelessness than did the nonsuicidal adolescents. However, all three groups of depressed adolescents reported similar low levels of self-esteem. Measures of depression and hopelessness were useful in classifying the adolescents based on their suicidal behavior. Results suggest that the treatment of suicidal adolescents could benefit from strategies that focus on reducing feelings of depression and hopelessness.     

A comparison of aggressive and withdrawn children's self-esteem,optimism and pessimism,and causal attributions for success and failure

Aggressive children, withdrawn children, combined aggressive and withdrawn children, and children displaying neither aggressive nor withdrawn behavior were compared on three self-appraisal measures: (a) self-esteem, (b) attributions to ability and lack of ability following success and failure, and (c) optimism and pessimism about one's long-term personal future. From an initial sample of 583 elementary school children, independent and extreme groups were identified by combined ratings of teachers and classmates. Solely aggressive children had higher self-esteem than either solely withdrawn children or children who were both aggressive and withdrawn. The control group of children who were neither aggressive nor withdrawn had the highest self-esteem of all. The control group also attributed success to ability more than the two groups of children with high withdrawal scores but did not differ from the solely aggressive children. There were no significant differences among the groups in attributions to lack of ability following failure or in optimism or pessimism.We wish to thank Elliot Fielstein, Mariellen Fischer, Michael Klein, and Penelope Koburger for their assistance with data collection, and Elliot Fielstein and Matthew Tarran for their assistance with data analysis. We are also indebted to Bruce Compas for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Depression, self-esteem, and anger in emerging adulthood: seven-year trajectories

This study used a school-based community sample (N=920) to examine trajectories of depressive symptoms, self-esteem, and expressed anger in the critical years of emerging adulthood (ages 18-25). Using data from 5 waves, the authors discovered that multilevel models indicated that, on average, depressive symptoms and expressed anger declined, whereas self-esteem increased. Between-persons predictors of variability in trajectories included gender (gender gaps in depressive symptoms and self-esteem narrowed), parents' education, and conflict with parents (depressive symptoms and expressed anger improved fastest in participants with highly educated parents and in those with higher conflict). Across time, increases in social support and marriage were associated with increased psychological well-being, whereas longer periods of unemployment were connected with higher depression and lower self-esteem. Emerging adulthood is a time of improving psychological well-being, but individual trajectories depend on specific individual and family characteristics as well as role changes.     

Distortion in control attributions for real life events

A pool of life events was prerated as either positive or negative and likely or unlikely to recur. Undergraduate subjects then rated their control over their own life events and the average student's control over his/her life events. As predicted, subjects self-attributed more control over positive than negative events and self-attributed more control than they attributed control to others for positive events. However, self-attributions and attributions to others of control for negative events did not differ. Results thus provided support for self-enhancement but not for self-protection. It was also predicted that control motivation would lead subjects to (a) self-attribute more control for recurrent than nonrecurrent events, (b) self-attribute more control than they attribute to others over all events, and (c) self-attribute more control than they attribute to others for recurrent but not nonrecurrent events. The first and second of these predictions were confirmed, providing support for the operation of control motivation on real life events.     

Type of academic training and causal attributions for social problems

To provide evidence of the effects of academic training on causal attributions, university students in social science, commerce and engineering were compared at different points of their training in terms of their explanations of poverty and unemployment. Results of cross-sectional analyses showed no field differences in causal attributions at the beginning of the first academic year but significant differences at the end of the year, with social science students blaming the system more than commerce or engineering students. Longitudinal analysis showed that, within a six-month interval, the causal attributions of the students changed significantly as a function of their field of study. Differential employment prospects, while not accounting for the effects of academic training, were found to be related to attributional change. These results confirm the hypothesis that causal attributions are affected by socialization in a particular culture and that exposure to the culture of the social sciences reinforces a system-blame ideology. The implications of these findings for theories of the attribution process and theories of intergroup relations are discussed.     

It's not my fault: when and why attributions to prejudice protect self-esteem

This study tested the hypothesis that awareness of the possibility of being a target of discrimination can provide individuals with a means of self-esteem protection when they are faced with negative outcomes. Men and women contemplated being rejected from a course due to sexism, personal deservingness, or an exclusively external cause. Regardless of gender, participants in the sexism condition blamed themselves less, attributed the rejection less to internal causes, and anticipated feeling less depressed than those in the personal deservingness condition. Furthermore, the more participants discounted the rejection--blamed it more on discrimination than themselves--the less depressed emotions they anticipated feeling. Discounting did not buffer participants from feeling hostility or anxiety. These findings advance our understanding of when and why attributions to prejudice protect emotional well-being.     

The relationship of time investment and task outcome to causal attributions and self-esteem1

This study examined the relationship between performance outcome, time spent working at a task, and attributions to ability versus effort. It also explored differences in performance time as a function of self-esteem and task-performance expectancies. Subjects worked on a series of concept-attainment items and then were given either success or failure feedback regarding their performance and also information that they had worked either faster or slower than other subjects. They then evaluated their performance and that of a fictitious subject who had also purportedly done the task. Subjects attributed their own and other subjects' successes more to ability if they spent less time at the task and failure outcomes more to ability if they had spent more time at the task. Attributions to success and failure outcomes differed as a function of the interactive effect of self-esteem and task-specific expectancies. Low self-esteem subjects tended to attribute expected outcomes more to ability and unexpected outcomes more to effort, whereas high self-esteem subjects attributed successes more to ability and failure more to effort. Practice time and criteria for satisfaction were also a joint function of self-esteem and task-performance expectancy. The results suggest that task-performance expectancies must be considered when evaluating the role of self-esteem in determining people's responses in performance situations.     

Depression and attributions in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review

This article presents a meta-analytic review of the association between attributional styles and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. In 28 studies involving 7500 subjects, the correlations were consistent with those predicted by the reformulated learned helplessness model of depression. For negative outcomes, attributions along the internal, stable, and global dimensions were associated positively with depression. Conversely, higher levels of depressive symptoms were related to more external, unstable, and specific attributions for positive events. Additionally, overall composite maladaptive attributional patterns for positive and negative events were correlated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in youth. Effect sizes for these associations ranged from moderate to large (Cohen, 1977). Findings from the significance tests of the combined results support the theory. A large number of unretrieved studies revealing null effects would be needed to invalidate these findings.     

Global self-esteem across the life span

This study provides a comprehensive picture of age differences in self-esteem from age 9 to 90 years using cross-sectional data collected from 326,641 individuals over the Internet. Self-esteem levels were high in childhood, dropped during adolescence, rose gradually throughout adulthood, and declined sharply in old age. This trajectory generally held across gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and nationality (U.S. citizens vs. non-U.S. citizens). Overall, these findings support previous research, help clarify inconsistencies in the literature, and document new trends that require further investigation.     

Comparing adolescent positive affect and self-esteem as precursors to adult self-esteem and life satisfaction

Motivation and Emotion - Parents often hope for their children to be happy and to have high self-esteem, but little research has compared how these two constructs are related to long-term...     

Depression, learning disability, and school behavior problems

It is possible that recurrent depression (primary affective illness) is the most significant variable related to school problems of a behavioral nature in children manifesting developmental specific learning disabilities. The association of school problems and depression was investigated at a private school for children with developmental specific learning disabilities. These children were of normal intelligence and were free of primary conduct or thought disturbances. Prior to entering school, 95% of the students fulfilled criteria for developmental specific learning disabilities and 64% for depression with or without hyperactivity. Students manifesting no diagnosable behavioral condition prior to entrance continued to be relatively free of behavioral problems during their stay at school. Students with both depression and hyperactivity showed the most problematic behavior followed by students with depression without hyperactivity.     

Socioenvironmental experiences,self-esteem,and emotional/behavioral problems in early adolescence

Tested the role of self-esteem as a mediator of relationships between socioenvironmental experiences and emotional/behavioral problems using a sample of 215 young adolescents (Grades 7–9). Socioenvironmental experiences were assessed using self-report questionnaire measures of social support and major and minor stressful events. Self-esteem was assessed using a self-report questionnaire, an interview, and a parent-report questionnaire. Emotional/behavioral problems were assessed using self-report, parent-report and teacherreport questionnaires. Utilizing structural equation modeling, the data were used to test a model in which self-esteem mediated the relationship between socioenvironmental experiences and emotional/behavioral problems. The hypothesized model provided a reasonably good fit to the data (normed fit index=.90). However, an alternative model which also allowed for direct effects of socioenvironmental experiences on emotional/behavioral problems produced a significant improvement in model fit. In this model, socio-environmental experiences had significant effects on emotional problems via both direct effects and indirect effects that indicated a mediating role for self-esteem. Only direct effects of socioenvironmental experiences were evident for behavioral problems. This research was supported by a grant to the first author from the University of Missouri Research Board. Thanks are due to the students, staff, and parents of the Columbia Public Schools, Columbia, Missouri, for their participation in and support of this research project.     

Adolescents' problems and their relationship to self-esteem.

The Mooney Problem Check List and Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale were administered to 201 adolescents, ages 14 to 16 years. Sex differences in the number and nature of problems reported, and their relationship to self-esteem, were examined. Results indicated that, overall, girls reported significantly more problems and lower levels of self-esteem than did boys. Girls had more problems with interpersonal relationships, personal adjustment, health, and family issues. There were no significant differences between girls and boys in the areas of educational and vocational future. Surprisingly, neither boys nor girls were particularly concerned about their vocational/educational future. Relative to other areas, adjustment to schoolwork was identified as being of considerable concern for both sexes. There was a significant relationship between self-esteem and reported problems, and different problem areas were related to self-esteem for girls and boys. The findings of this study support previous research and provide further information concerning relationships between self-esteem and problems.