Behav. Res. Ther. Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 379 382, 1985 0005-7967/85 $3.00 + 0.00 Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved Copyright © 1985 Pergamon Press Ltd

DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AND UNPROMPTED CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS: CONTENT ANALYSIS

CHRISTOPHER PETERSON, l BARBARA A. BETTES 2 and MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN 3 IDepartment of Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg,

VA 24061, U.S.A.

2Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, U.S.A.

3University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, U.S.A.

(Received 24 October 1984)

Summary--Sixty-six adults wrote essays describing the two worst events that had occurred to them during the preceding year and then completed the short-form of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Causal explanations for bad events were extracted from the essays and rated by judges for internality (vs externality), stability (vs instability) and globality (vs specificity). Ratings were consistent across different attributions made by the same individual. Further, the internality, stability and globality of these unprompted attributions correlated with depressive symptoms as measured by the BDI. Taken together, the results support the attributional reformulation of the learned-helplessness model of depression.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

According to the original learned helplessness hypothesis, uncontrollable events result in several deficits, including sad affect and other depressive symptoms (Seligman, 1975). When this model proved inadequate to explain the chronicity and generality of helplessness and depression, it was reformulated along attributional lines (Abramson, Seligrnan and Teasdale, 1978). The re- formulation proposes that bad events are likely to result in depression when they are explained by internal, stable and global causes. Further, according to the reformulation, individuals have characteristic attributional styles: a style that explains bad events by internal, stable and global causes is likely to be associated with depressive symptoms.

Although the helplessness reformulation has stimulated a fair amount of research (see Peterson and Seligman, 1984), not all studies have supported its predictions (Coyne and Gotlib, 1983). Further, these studies have not addressed two critical questions. First, do people 'spontaneously' offer causal explanations? If unprompted attributions are not offered frequently (Silver, Wortman and Klos, 1982), then it is implausible to explain the development and maintenance of depressive symptoms in this way. Second, if unprompted causal explanations are made, do they reflect a style? If individuals are inconsistent (Hamilton and Abramson, 1983), then it is not reasonable to posit attributional 'style' as a risk factor for depression or as a target of therapy. Most investigations of the reformulation measure attributional style with a questionnaire (Peterson and Seligman, 1984), the use of which leaves these issues unresolved.

The present research supplements questionnaire studies of helplessness by measuring attributions and attributional style in a nonreactive way. We asked individuals to describe in writing two bad events involving themselves. Instructions stressed descriptive accuracy, and there was no mention of causal explanation. Hence, if causal attributions are included in these descriptions, we will conclude that they need not be explicitly solicited before they are offered. After writing the descriptions, Ss completed the short-form of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck and Beck, 1972), a frequently-used and well-validated measure of the degree of depressive symptomatology (Beck, 1967).

We extracted causal explanations for bad events from the written descriptions, and judges rated them in terms of their internality, stability and globality (Peterson, Luborsky and Seligman, 1983). The consistency of these attributions within a person and their association with depressive symptoms were assessed. According to the helplessness reformulation, individuals should be consistent across different causal explanations, and those individuals who attribute bad events to internal, stable and global causes should report the most depressive symptoms.

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380 CHRISTOPHER PETERSON et al.

METHOD

Subjects and procedure

Participants in this research were 66 adults (31 males, 35 females; average age = 21 yr) recruited on the University of Pennsylvania campus during summer 1981. The researchers sat on a busy campus walkway behind a sign requesting volunteers for a psychology study. Passers-by who stopped were asked to describe in writing, using 250-300 words, the two worst events involving themselves that had occurred during the last year. Each S then completed two questionnaires which had not been mentioned before this point.

Questionnaires

First, Ss completed the short-form of the BDI (Beck and Beck, 1972), a 13-item self-report instrument that assesses the extent and severity of common depressive symptoms. Second, they completed the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson, Semmel, von Baeyer, Abramson, Metalsky and Seligman, 1982), which asks Ss to make causal attributions for hypothetical bad and good events involving themselves. Each provided attribution is then rated by the S with 7-point scales in accord with its internality, stability and globality. Scores for these dimensions are calculated by averaging ratings over the six bad events and six good events.

Attribution ratings

The procedure described by Peterson et al. (1983) by which unprompted causal attributions occurring in written material can be scored for internality, stability and globality was followed here. Briefly, a judge extracted causal statements from the written descriptions if they satisfied the following criteria:

(1) a specific event, happening or experience that had a discernible beginning and ending was described;

(2) the event involved the self, and it was experienced as undesirable in some way; (3) a causal statement about the event was made, identifiable by the use of one or more

phrases like 'because', 'since', 'as a result of ' or 'this led to'; the attribution referred to another event, happening, or experience that preceded the event of interest, to dispositional characteristics of the self or of another individual or to situational factors.

Each event description and the accompanying attribution were transcribed verbatim and shown singly to four blind and independent judges who rated the attribution with 7-point scales for its internality, stability and globality.

As in previous research using this procedure, both extraction and ratings of attributions were reliable. A second judge independently identified attributions in the essays, agreeing with the first judge in 94~o of the cases. When combined into equally-weighted composites, the ratings of the four judges had s-coefficients (Cronbach, 1951) of 0.93 for internality, 0.89 for stability and 0.90 for globality.

Following our procedure with the ASQ, composite ratings for each attribution were created by combining the internality, stability and globality ratings. These scores are typically intercorrelated, and according to the attributional reformulation, they are all similarly associated with increased depressive symptoms (Peterson and Seligman, 1984).

RESULTS

Reliability of questionnaires

The BDI was highly reliable. Internal consistency, estimated by coefficient ~, was 0.86 (mean = 5.86, SD = 5.16). Reliabilities of the ASQ were modest, in the 0.4-0.7 range, and similar to those reported by Peterson et al. (1982). As predicted by the reformulation, depressive symptoms correlated with internal (r = 0.41, P < 0.001), stable (r = 0.42, P < 0.001) and global (r = 0.29, P < 0.05) attributions for bad events as measured by the ASQ. Attribution style for good events showed the opposite relationship with depression.

Depressive symptoms and causal attributions 381

Table 1. Unprompted attributions and depressive symptoms (n = 66) Dimension INT STA GLO COMP

Coding reliability 0.93 0.89 0.90 0.77 Mean 3.71 3.78 3.13 3.54 SD 1.54 1.62 1.43 1.27 Consistency 0.25* 0.49*** 0.33** 0.41"** r with BDI 0.36** 0.29* 0.33** 0.39** r with ASQ score 0.41"** 0.19 0.23 0.30** Abbreviations are as follows: INT = internality, STA = stability, GLO = globality and

COMP = composite. Coding reliability estimated by Cronbach's (1951) ~t. Consistency estimated by product-moments correlation between attribution for first event and attribution for second event (see text). Correlation with ASQ score is for the correspond- ing dimension (e.g. internality of unprompted attributions with internality of bad events from the ASQ).

*P <0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001.

Unprompted attributions, attributional style and depressive symptoms

O f the 66 Ss , 59 offered at least one causa l exp lana t ion for each b a d event descr ibed ( = 9 1 ~ ) . The average n u m b e r o f a t t r ibu t ions per S was 2.03 (range = 1-4; SD = 0.61). To see whe ther ind iv idua ls m a d e consis tent causal exp lana t ions , we cor re la ted the ra t ings (averaged over judges) o f the a t t r i bu t i on a b o u t the first bad event wi th the ra t ings o f the a t t r ibu t ion a b o u t the second b a d event. ( I f more than one a t t r ibu t ion per event was avai lable , these were averaged. ) As shown in Table 1, the a t t r ibu t ions were consistent .

The magn i tude o f consis tency is no t great , bu t r emember tha t only two events were expla ined by the Ss. Suppose we had a t t r ibu t ions for 10 events. Acco rd ing to the S p e a r m a n - B r o w n formula , consis tency es t imated by C r o n b a c h ' s (1951) ~ would be increased to qui te sa t i s fac tory levels: 0.77 for in ternal i ty , 0.91 for s tabi l i ty and 0.83 for global i ty .*

A t t r i b u t i o n s offered by the same ind iv idua l were ave raged and then cor re la ted with the BDI and the A S Q (see Tab le 1). The in ternal i ty , s tabi l i ty and g lobal i ty o f causal exp lana t ions for b a d events co r re la ted with depressive s y m p t o m s as p red ic ted by the helplessness re formula t ion . Fu r the r , these a t t r i bu t ion scores converged with the co r r e spond ing scales o f the A S Q for b a d events, a l though only in te rna l i ty achieved s tat is t ical significance.

Nature of events as a possible confound

H a m m e n and M a y o l (1982) a rgued tha t the a t t r i b u t i o n - d e p r e s s i o n l ink m a y be an ar t i fact , the b y p r o d u c t o f the fact tha t ' undes i r ab l e - r e spons ib l e ' events (like academic p rob l ems or roman t i c difficulties) are l ikely to lead to result in depress ion as well as to be expla ined by internal , s table and g lobal causes. Since a b o u t ha l f o f the b a d events descr ibed by our Ss were o f this type, we inves t iga ted whether the ob t a ined cor re la t ions be tween u n p r o m p t e d a t t r ibu t ions and depress ion were thereby confounded . Us ing H a m m e n and M a y o l ' s (1982) classif icat ion scheme, we c o m p u t e d the number o f ' undes i r ab l e - r e spons ib l e ' events for each S (0, 1 or 2), and then cor re la ted these with a t t r i bu t ion ra t ings and BDI scores. Cor re l a t ions tended to be significant, repl ica t ing H a m m e n and M a y o l ' s (1982) f indings ( internal i ty , r = 0.39, P < 0.005; s tabi l i ty , r = 0.22, P < 0.10; g lobal - ity, r = 0.19, NS; compos i te , r = 0.32, P < 0.05; depress ion, r = 0.25, P < 0.05). However , when we pa r t i a l ed the n u m b e r o f ' undes i r ab l e - r e sp ons ib l e ' events f rom the cor re la t ions between un- p r o m p t e d a t t r ibu t ions and depressive symptoms , these cor re la t ions all r emained significant ( internal i ty , r = 0.29, P < 0.05; s tabi l i ty, r = 0.25. P < 0.05; g lobal i ty , r = 0.29, P < 0.05; com- posi te , r = 0.34, P < 0.01).

D I S C U S S I O N

These results are no t ewor thy for several reasons . Firs t , they show tha t the i m p o r t a n t var iables o f the helplessness r e f o r m u l a t i o n - - a t t r i b u t i o n s and a t t r i bu t iona l s t y l e - - a r e more than jus t

*In further support of this argument, we content analysed the causal attributions contained in verbal statements from another 40 individuals who each offered at least five explanations for bad events involving the self (Castellon, Ollove and Seligman, 1984). We calculated the or-coefficients for the internality, stability and globality of the first five explanations made by each S. Figures were respectably high: 0.64 for internality, 0.64 for stability and 0.60 for globality.

382 CHRISTOPHER PETERSON et al.

responses to questions about hypothetical events. Individuals offer unsolicited causal explanations about real events they experience, and when made about bad events these explanations are consistent along the dimensions o f internality, stability and globality.

Second, the present research demonstrates the usefulness o f content analysis to study cognitive factors in depression. Our procedure is nonreactive. Because it uses blind judges, it is unbiased. Further, it posses good reliability. In another investigation (Peterson et al., 1983), we used content analysis to study unprompted causal explanations in psychotherapy sessions, and these were related to depression in the same way as in the present study. Al though the use o f content analysis in this line o f research is new, it promises to be a powerful addit ion to the repertoire o f the depression researcher (Peterson and Seligman, 1984). It seems a particularly appropr ia te way to investigate the 'naive psychology ' o f fundamental interest to con tempora ry cognitive theory (Heider, 1958).

The present s tudy has limitations. Research participants were not clinically depressed. Our conclusions most appropriately apply to depressive symptoms as a cont inuous variable, not as a psychiatric syndrome. Also, the research was not longitudinal. The helplessness reformulat ion assigns to at tr ibutions a causal role (Peterson and Seligman, 1984), but our results are merely correlational. Because all the data were obtained at the same time, Ss may have imposed consistency on their responses (Mischel, 1968). This seems unlikely in light o f a parallel study we conducted in which Ss wrote essays about ' any event during the last year ' . Causal explanations extracted f rom these stories were not consistent, and they did not correlate with BD! scores.

Another limitation here is that Ss ' recall o f bad events may have been affected by their level o f depression. H o w differential recall o f bad events might influence causal explanations is not clear, but some role is possible. Finally, the ratings o f the unprompted at tr ibutions did not correlate as highly with ASQ scores as the helplessness reformulat ion seems to imply. Low reliability o f the ASQ scales may be responsible. But, as we have elsewhere argued, at tr ibutions about actual events have determinants other than at tr ibutional style, which the ASQ measures (Peterson and Seligman, 1984).

In conclusion, we showed that individuals offer causal explanations about bad events even when not explicitly solicited. These explanations are consistent within individuals. They are related to depressive symptoms as predicted by the reformulat ion o f the learned-helplessness model.

Acknowledgements--This research was supported by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Research Division Small Project Grant 1895140 to C. Peterson and U.S. Public Health Service Grant MH-19604 to M. E. P. Seligman. We wish to thank our research assistants from the Helplessness Seminar at the University of Pennsylvania.

All correspondence should be addressed to C. Peterson.

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