Further Thoughts on Explanatory Style

Further Thoughts on Explanatory StyleAuthor(s): Christopher PetersonSource: Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1991), pp. 50-57Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1449415 .

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Psychological Inquiry Copyright 1991 by 1991, Vol. 2, No. 1, 50-57 Lawrence Eribaum Associates, Inc.

AUTHOR'S RESPONSE

Further Thoughts on Explanatory Style

Christopher Peterson University of Michigan

My article stimulated a variety of comments; many of these reactions pertained to the particular points I raised in the article, but a number of the reactions concerned points that I did not raise. Because my original purpose was to identify and answer important questions in the literature on explanatory style, these latter reactions are important.

Here is how I proceed in this response. First, I summarize the conclusions offered in my original article, noting the reactions that these points stimulated. In some cases I agree, and in other cases, not. Second, I briefly describe and react to some new questions and concerns identified in the commentaries. Third, I close with some remarks on the experience of providing a target article for this journal. Doing so has led me to reflect on the process of doing psychological research and on the role of advocate that I have adopted vis-a-vis explanatory style.

"The Meaning and Measurement of Explanatory Style": Summary and

Reactions

Explanatory style is an individual difference that reflects how people explain the causes of bad events. Emerging from the learned helplessness research tradition, explanatory style specifies three dimensions of causal attributions that presumably influence how individuals respond to actual bad events befalling them. At least in part because of the availability of simple ways to measure explanatory style, notably the At- tributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson et al., 1982), this individual difference has been examined in a variety of studies. Numerous correlates have been established, suggesting that a pessimistic/fatalistic/helpless explanatory style is associated with poor functioning in a variety of domains.

As interest in explanatory style has increased, so too have criticisms and questions about the meaning and measurement of the construct. In my target article, I tried to articulate the most common areas of skepticism concerning explanatory style, in the form of questions. Then I attempted to answer each of these questions, concluding that in some cases there indeed exist legitimate difficulties with theory and/or research, whereas in other cases the criticisms are simply wrong.

Why Describe Explanatory Style Along the Dimensions of Internality, Stability, and Globality?

As noted, the explanatory style construct comes out of the learned helplessness research tradition, and the particular

dimensions of explanatory style-internality, stability, and globality-were chosen to resolve anomalous findings in this line of research. These dimensions presumably influence the boundary conditions of one's reactions to bad events. I concluded that there is a theoretical reason for defining explanatory style in these terms. I also concluded that as explanatory style is applied to topics outside the learned helplessness tradition, this theoretical rationale loses its power.

Few of the commentators criticized this particular line of reasoning, which relies mainly on the history of explanatory style research. However, a more extensive history could have been presented, and perhaps it should have been, in light of comments by Lefcourt and Weiner to the effect that those of us who write about explanatory style neglect to acknowledge influences on our work. Needless to say, the notion of explanatory style was not created from thin air, as Abramson, Dykman, and Needles remind us.

The reformulated learned helplessness model was ushered in by the cognitive revolution. And such key concepts such as expectancy and attribution were widely used in the well- known work of Rotter, Heider, Atkinson, Jones and Davis, Kelley, and many others, including Lefcourt and Weiner. The notion of individual differences in cognitive style was present decades ago in Kelly's personal construct theory and even earlier in Lewin's topological model. As cognates of personal control, learned helplessness and explanatory style can be traced almost to the turn of the century in Adler's emphasis on people's striving for superiority (see Peterson & Stunkard, 1989).

Perhaps the apparent neglect of this particular history is inadvertent, the result of another lineage that learned helplessness researchers usually emphasize more: general learning theory. Learned helplessness was first described in an animal learning laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, by students of the noted learning theorist Richard Solomon (Overmier & Seligman, 1967; Seligman & Maier, 1967). "Helplessness" was produced in animals in investigations originally concerned with issues of Pavlovian-operant trans- fer. Specifically, how is the operant conditioning of an animal influenced by previously acquired classical conditioning? The answer is that operant conditioning is profoundly disrupted, as the animal shows what has come to be known as learned helplessness.

As learned helplessness research grew, it also evolved, appropriating constructs from other lines of work, some quite far-flung. Explanatory style, obviously, has few ante- cedents in animal learning. But as we tell and retell the story of learned helplessness, perhaps we have rendered history



AUTHOR'S RESPONSE 51

too simple, stressing certain ancestors more than others which actually prove more influential at the present.

Many of the same researchers have moved from laboratory studies of helpless animals to those of helpless people to those of explanatory style, giving the appearance of con- tinuity to these investigations. But despite the surface con- tinuity, there are profound discontinuities as well, not the least of which entails jumping from a concern with general learning theory and environmental stimuli to a cognitive approach to personality replete with phenomenological constructs. I have elsewhere noted that "learned helplessness" encompasses at least five different lines of theory and research (Peterson, 1985).

Contrada raises a pertinent question about the description of explanatory style in terms of the internality, stability, and globality of attributed causes. If the purpose of explanatory style is to help account for how people respond to bad events, then why limit the meaning of this individual difference simply to causal attributions? Not just cognitive tendencies are plausibly involved; so too are emotional and behavioral hab- its. This point is well taken, particularly because explanatory style may well smuggle in emotional and behavioral tendencies, despite being presented as "cold" cognition.

Causal explanations predict people's responses to the degree that they are offered for unambiguously good or bad events. My file drawer contains more than a few studies showing that causal explanations for neutral events are unrelated to depression, helplessness, and the like. In other words, the events for which attributions are offered must be those about which people care if these attributions are to be psychologically informative. The learned helplessness reformulation explicitly recognizes this point, and the original version of the ASQ asked respondents to rate the importance of events. For no particularly good reason, this aspect of explanatory style has not been studied (but see Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989). It is possible that explanatory style "works' as it does because it reflects more than just causal attributions, that its meaning is already as rich as Contrada suggests it should be.

Why Not Include Other Dimensions of Explanatory Style?

Other dimensions of explanatory style might well be worthy of study, and indeed, theorists and researchers have proposed and examined several candidates. In the target article, I suggested that there probably is no "basic" set of attributional dimensions, and so one's theoretical concerns should inform the choice of dimensions. At the same time, citing some evidence from a study I had conducted, I cau- tioned that conceptually distinct dimensions may prove to be empirically redundant.

This particular issue attracted a fair amount of attention from the commentators. In effect, I suggested that researchers study the dimensions in which they are interested, and let other researchers study other dimensions as they wish. I admit now that this suggestion was a bit ingenuous; a researcher's choice of explanatory style dimensions cannot be this idiosyncratic. Some dimensions are more sensible than others in terms of predicting outcomes of interest. Ex- planatory style researchers to date have cast their lot with internlality, stability, and globality. Anderson and Deuser as well as Weiner suggest that controllability is critical. Zullow

suggests the perceived consequences of events (cf. Wortman & Dintzer, 1978). And Brewin argues in favor of moral blame. I am persuaded by these reactions that explanatory style researchers must no longer be so complacent about studying only the internality, stability, and globality of attributions.

"Attribution" has too often been limited to causal beliefs, perhaps under the sway of Kelley's (1973) influential "person as scientist" metaphor. Yet there are other models of the attribution process, notably those that construe people as moralists, making sense of events in moral terms, using notions of responsibility and blame rather than principles of covariation. Perhaps depressives can be described as morally confused. This possibility has been present in the literature for as far back as Freud's (1917/1957) discussion of melancholia and his emphasis on the striking fact that depressed people regard themselves as bad. If we interpret explanatory style in causal terms, we gain no insight into the moral self- blame that characterizes depression.

These ideas help us understand what explanatory style might mean. They do not affect how we measure explanatory style with the ASQ. Respondents may well be providing moral ascriptions when asked to provide "the one major cause" of a bad event. Usually what they write is quite brief, and it is hard to say that a given attribution is causal, moral, or some combination. But this idea deserves further scrutiny, perhaps by asking subjects to elaborate on what they have written.

When explanatory style is assessed with our content analysis procedure (the CAVE; Peterson, Schulman, Castellon, & Seligman, in press), though, I can assert that causal attributions are identified. The directions for the CAVE instruct the researcher to apply covariation principles in identifying attributions for bad events. Perhaps here is a clue about how the CAVE differs from the ASQ. It is my sense that the ASQ yields somewhat more robust correlates with external criteria such as depression; I previously shrugged off this impression-if indeed correct-as having something to do with differential reliability. Brewin's comments now have me wondering if perhaps the ASQ "works" better because it allows respondents to take on or throw off moral blame, as the case may be.

Research by Anderson and his colleagues has demonstrated that perceived controllability is important in understanding how people respond to events. Helplessness theory assumes so, and as Anderson and Deuser speculate, perhaps this assumption is so reasonable that helplessness research has rarely bothered to include particular measures of controllability.

In the past, I have regarded the bad events asked about on the ASQ as necessarily uncontrollable ones. But this is too simple. It ignores the fact that bad events differ in their perceived controllability, as Anderson and his colleagues have shown. It also ignores the fact that a "bad" event has psychological significance above and beyond being aversive and uncontrollable. To call an event bad is to imply that one wishes to keep it from happening. A cold rain is aversive and uncontrollable, but it may or may not be bad.

This illustrates again the complexity resulting from the multiplicity of learned helplessness traditions. A dog or rat being exposed to uncontrollable shocks is not exactly the same thing as a college student failing to solve an anagram; both differ from an individual outside the laboratory trying to



52 PETERSON

make sense of a tragic misfortune. Glib treatments of learned helplessness regard these as interchangeable, and this is a mistake.

Anderson and Deuser seem to misunderstand my point about the dangers of attributional chauvinism. I was not referring to those who choose to study dimensions other than internality, stability, and globality. I was referring to anyone, including myself, who settles on a narrow range of dimensions to study.

Let me close with one more comment about chauvinism, this time methodological, again including myself as a culprit. I worry that in my old age I have become too comfortable with the ASQ. Perhaps the field as a whole is too comfortable with it. I am not the first person to observe that psychological research can be too method driven. Over the past decade, I have mailed hundreds of copies of the ASQ to researchers around the world. Often these are dissertation students whose advisors insist that they use "established" measures. Because the ASQ does not ask about controllability, neglect of this important dimension has become in- stitutionalized. I am not sure how one is supposed to change this state of affairs, but it does exist.

Relatedly, the possibility that different ways of measuring explanatory style might yield different patterns of correlates must be considered. If the history of psychological measurement tells us anything, it is that convergence among ostensibly similar measures is the exception rather than the rule (Scott, Osgood, & Peterson, 1979). Anderson's research, using a different measure of explanatory style, shows that controllability is more important in predicting depression than are internality, stability, and globality. But some un- published data gathered with the Expanded ASQ suggests just the opposite. I added a "controllability" rating scale to those for internality, stability, and globality, and in a sample of 140 college students who also completed the Beck Depres- sion Inventory (BDI), controllability was the least robust correlate of depressive symptoms (see Table 1). I wonder if our different ways of going about the assessment of explanatory style are responsible for the contradiction in our findings.

Why Form a Composite?

The three dimensions of the ASQ are often combined into a single composite, and the justification for doing this has been questioned. On the one hand, I concluded that the prac- tice of forming a composite is justified if a researcher is interested in relating explanatory style to a phenomenon, such as depression, to which all three dimensions equally pertain. Then it can be argued that a composite attempts to

Table 1. Dimensions of Explanatory Style and Depression

Dimension Correlation With BDI

Internality .18* Stability .19* Globality .40* Controllability - .13

Note: n- 140. *p < .05.

capture an underlying factor. On the other hand, composites should not be automatically formed without examining the individual dimensions. There exist published articles, including some of my own, in which only the composite measure is mentioned, and here this criticism is on the money.

My sense was and still is that the conclusions I offered in the target article are even-handed, but several commentaries continue to criticize the use of a composite (e.g., those by Carver & Scheier; Contrada; Gotlib; Hammen; Tennen & Af- fleck; Zullow). Perhaps there is an impasse, one not solved by repeating the arguments for and against a composite. The good news is that the ways we go about assessing explanatory style allow us to look at this construct in terms of both its individual dimensions and its composite.

My hope is that such comparative analyses can tell us whether a composite is a sensible idea and if so, just what kind of composite we should create. For example, Table 2 presents some reanalyses of previously gathered data: five samples of college students who completed the Expanded ASQ (total N = 610). These data suggest that the three dimensions of explanatory style tend to covary, justifying- at least by one criterion-the formation of a single composite score. But these data also suggest that stability and globality are much more entwined with one another than either is with internality, implying that there may be two dimensions of explanatory style, as the factor-analytic study described in my article found (and as Carver & Scheier suggest, along with Weiner here and elsewhere). So, perhaps the issue of a composite does not have a simple yes-no answer but rather one that depends on how closely one wishes to scrutinize interrelations among the dimensions defining the explanatory style construct.

An issue related to the formation (or not) of a composite is whether the three attributional dimensions each contribute to the prediction of a variable like depression. I performed multiple-regression analyses for the five samples just mentioned, in which each subject had completed the BDI. Inter- nality, stability, and globality scores were used as predictors. In no case did all three dimensions separately predict depression. In terms of the significant predictors, no particular pattern emerged. The best predictors varied across samples.

Yet another related issue is raised by Carver and Scheier as well as by Abramson et al.: whether the three dimensions combine interactively to predict outcomes. In other words, does each dimension have to be above a threshold before an attribution is linked to depression or low self-esteem? This is a plausible idea, but when I tested it in the five samples by calculating a product term (internality x stability x globality), which I entered into a multiple-regression formula predicting BDI scores after first entering internality, stability, and globality, in no case did the product add signifi-

Table 2. Average Intercorrelations of Explanatory Style Dimensions

Internality Stability Globality

Internality Stability .15 Globality . 19 .57-

Note: These figures are averages from five different samples: ns = 75, 108, 115, 140, 172.




cantly to the variance explained. I conclude that, for the sorts of attributions measured by the ASQ, configural scoring is not indicated.

What About Explanatory Style for Good Events?

Learned helplessness theory and research have never been particularly interested in responses to good events, but the original ASQ solicited attributions for good events as well as for the theoretically critical bad events. What this means is that a number of findings concerning explanatory style for good events exist but that they have yet to receive a sound theoretical examination. Until this happens, I argued against forming a composite that combines explanatory style for good events with explanatory style for bad events.

My comments about explanatory style for good events stimulated few comments. Lefcourt observes that abundant evidence links good moods to positive outcomes, and won- ders why I concluded that there are no such data. My conclusion was intended to be a more specific one-namely, that no research links explanatory style for good events to good moods and positive outcomes. However, as Abramson et al. point out, a study exactly like this has now been conducted by Needles and Abramson (1990).

At any rate, I agree with Lefcourt's more general point that work in the explanatory style tradition should reach out to related lines of inquiry. An issue of potential importance is whether psychological well-being is better served by the absence of negative views or the presence of positive ones (cf. Taylor & Brown, 1988).

Gotlib also raises an important point-that positive affect and negative affect are often independent. Granted the potential importance of affect to explanatory style, as explained earlier, perhaps we should expect independence of explanatory styles for good versus bad events. That these styles may have separate origins is an intriguing possibility.

What Is the Relationship Between Explanatory Style and Optimism?

We have taken to calling explanatory style "optimistic" or "pessimistic" in accordance with its presumed effects on motivation and morale. This usage has been questioned as misleading. I concluded that the labeling of explanatory style with the adjectives optimistic and pessimistic can be useful in that the meaning of explanatory style is thereby fleshed out. At the same time, it can be problematic to speak as if measures of explanatory style identify types of people-op- timists and pessimists. Further, it can be problematic if different operationalizations of an optimistic-versus-pessimistic approach to life are treated as interchangeable when they are not.

Abramson et al., Carver and Scheier, Gotlib, and Tennen and Affleck join me in criticizing the casual description of explanatory style as optimism or pessimism. Indeed, these commentators criticize even the qualified description I rec- ommended. Zullow states that the Life Orientation Test (LOT) of Carver and Scheier is preferable as a measure of "optimism" on grounds of face validity.

I do not agree. My examination of the notion of optimism -conceptually, linguistically, and historically-suggests that it has no single meaning and thus no single opera-

tionalization (see Peterson & Bossio, 1991, chap. 1). Further, face validity is probably the least important criterion by which to judge a personality measure. One of the strengths of the ASQ is precisely that it is not transparent (Schulman, Seligman, & Amsterdam, 1987). I will continue to use optimistic and pessimistic as adjectives with which to describe explanatory style.

Are There Historical or Cultural Limitations on Explanatory Style?

This question has not been raised in the literature so much as in my own mind as I have tried to understand why the psychology of personal control-of which explanatory style is a respectable family member-has become so popular in the here and now (Peterson & Stunkard, 1989). Perhaps those of us in the United States during the late 20th century are particularly well-described in these terms. Perhaps those in other times and places do not have an explanatory style that functions in the same way.

I find this point the most interesting of the ones I have phrased, despite (or as a result of?) not knowing exactly how to go about investigating it. To date, I have merely inspected the narratives of people from cultures different from my own. Sometimes their causal attributions are quite sensible from my own perspective. But other times, they hint at a quite different way of making causal sense of the world.

For example, over the years I have collected attributions from the sports pages (cf. Peterson, 1980). Quotes by basket- ball player Manute Bol almost always stand out from those offered by his peers (no pun intended, even though Bol is 7'7" tall). Bol comes from an African tribe (the Dinka) with a very different sense of personal agency than that common in the contemporary United States. His causal attributions taken by themselves usually sound fatalistic. But there is no reason to think that Bol is at all helpless or hopeless, so perhaps here we have an example of cultural limits on explanatory style.

Similarly, I have recently read descriptions of "the worst event in my life during the last 3 years" written by 120 Catholic priests and nuns. I am content-analyzing these state- ments for causal attributions, but, when I am done with this analysis, I plan to go back and investigate an intriguing explanatory tendency not captured by explanatory style as usually conceived. Some of these individuals-although far from the majority-engage in what can be called a turning- the-other-cheek strategy in the wake of bad events occa- sioned by another individual. My informal impression is that these individuals also offer ostensibly pessimistic explanations for bad events (e.g., "This happened because I am not a good person"), but I further suspect that they are not depressed. These impressions can be formally tested because we have available measures of psychological well-being for all subjects. The Christian idea of original sin is internal, stable, and global to be sure, but, in the larger context of Christian belief, this is hardly depressogenic. Again, perhaps we have an example of a cultural limit on explanatory style.

Speaking of sin, Tennen and Affleck raise a sobering question about the moral implications of explanatory style research, phrasing well a concern that has lurked in my own mind. Theory and research in explanatory style strongly con- vey the message that people who offer external, unstable, and



54 PETERSON

specific explanations for good events are psychologically healthy. Recommendations that therapy be undertaken to encourage this style have been made (Peterson, 1982) and even carried out (Seligman et al., 1988).

But the epitome of an external, unstable, and specific explanatory style may well be found in the psychological makeup of a psychopath. More generally, there are numerous circumstances in which external, unstable, and specific explanations are unproductive and even immoral. Those of us who work with the explanatory style construct have yet to address these implications fully (but see Peterson & Bossio, 1991, chap. 8).

Perhaps what is most objectionable about our attributional vision of health is the external attribution of bad events. Perhaps we have yet another reason not to create an automat- ic composite of the three dimensions.

To switch from the moral domain to the empirical one: My impression is that the internality-externality of explanatory style bears the most inconsistent relationship to external criteria; it is the least reliable dimension (Peterson & Villanova, 1988). These empirical problems may stem from conceptual inconsistencies inherent in the internality-externality dimension. Internal attributions are counterproductive if they un- dercut one's sense of self; external attributions may similarly be counterproductive if they tell the individual that efforts to improve are not needed.

Regardless, an escape hatch is perhaps provided by a point we have repeatedly raised that "reality" is taken into account by the person who offers causal explanations for particular events (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). The original point was made with respect to the accuracy of an attribution, but it can be expanded to include its moral integrity. Again, Brewin's suggestion that our conception of explanation be expanded from a narrow causal one is worth taking seriously.

Do People Have a Consistent Explanatory Style?

The original version of the ASQ has at best modest reliability, a point that no one contests. Some have therefore concluded that people do not have a consistent explanatory style. In the target article, I strongly disagreed with this conclusion. The problem with the original ASQ is the measure itself, not the construct it tries to operationalize. The original ASQ contains too few items to expect impressive consistency. However, when more items are added, reliability goes up, just as the Spearman-Brown formula would lead us to expect (cf. Peterson, 1991).

Hammen remains unconvinced that the consistency of explanatory style has been demonstrated. Perhaps our disagree- ment is one of seeing the glass as half empty versus half full. Explanatory style has a degree of consistency. And it can and does change across domains and in response to life events. Not the least of the influences on explanatory style is depression itself, which means that explanatory style rises and falls in accordance with one's mood and, further, that someone may emerge from a depressive episode with a more pessimistic explanatory style than existed in the first place.

These empirical findings appear problematic because explanatory style is proposed as a risk factor for depression. Can it be as well a concomitant of depression and a conse- quence? There is nothing incompatible with these pos- sibilities; this state of affairs is an example of what Bandura

(1986) referred to as reciprocal determinism. The mutual influence of thoughts and moods is probably typical business for most people.

A considerable methodological problem results, though, in trying to disentangle such mutual influences. Bandura opted for a microanalytic strategy, investigating in very fine detail interrelations among different constructs. Explanatory style research has for the most part opted for a different strategy (macrosynthetic?) that looks at distant correlates. Causal ambiguity is invited, as well as impatience on the part of those who wish research to be tied closely to exact hypoth- eses (cf. commentaries by Anderson & Deuser; Tennen & Affleck) and processes (cf. commentaries by Abramson et al.; Contrada; Hammen; Zullow).

Hammen asks if explanatory style has become a trait, hoping that it has not. Sorry, but I will continue to describe explanatory style as "traitlike" (cf. Peterson & Seligman, 1984). I would not be uncomfortable with an even stronger description of the construct. I believe that traits are returning to a respectable place within personality psychology. Indeed, the "person variables" suggested by social learning theorists as conceptually superior to traits (Mischel, 1986) strike me as thoroughly traitlike, at least insofar as they are used in research.

Does Explanatory Style Predispose Spontaneous Attributions?

If explanatory style functions as theorists propose, it should be evident in the causal attributions that people offer in the course of ongoing activity. Stated another way, the ASQ should have predictive validity, correlating with the sorts of attributions that people actually offer. Some critics have suggested that this does not happen, arguing either that people do not make spontaneous attributions or that ASQ responses are unrelated to them when they do occur. In the target article, I disagreed with this line of criticism, citing studies to the contrary. Admittedly, the predictive validity of the ASQ is not high, but there are theoretical reasons to expect this.

Some of the commentators remain unconvinced, no doubt because the evidence I emphasize-although it exists-is not overwhelming. Again, we have a half-full, half-empty glass. Gotlib and Hammen register an additional criticism inherent in this issue and in the resolution I suggested- namely, that explanatory style has become reified, treated as a "thing" that causes people to offer particular explanations rather than others. I agree that the reification of explanatory style is a category mistake (Ryle, 1949).

In an earlier article, I tried to explain that explanatory style resides in our theories, not literally in our research subjects (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). Perhaps explanatory style researchers have strayed from this careful way of thinking about the construct. For example, in asking if explanatory style predisposes spontaneous attributions, I am using causal language and thereby entering the material realm, at least by implication. Is such an implication, intended or not, a harmful one? Some might say that this way of speaking about mental events indeed obscures our understanding; others would say that it is just a convenient usage and that most listeners know quite well that explanatory style is not an undiscovered structure of the pineal gland.

This issue is broader than explanatory style. It seems as if




most social cognition theorists and researchers speak as if their constructs are actual entities. But no CAT scan will ever reveal a schema or a script. Cognitive psychologists necessarily use metaphorical terms, and it is not helpful to criticize these as reified unless an alternative is provided.

Several times in my target article, I defended explanatory style research by comparing it to other lines of work within psychology and noting that explanatory style fares well. Sev- eral of the commentators seem unimpressed with this way of evaluating research, but my understanding of science is that we cannot apply absolute standards, only relative ones. So again I will observe that explanatory style is no more objectionable on the grounds of reification than any other construct to be found in social cognition.

Why Are the Correlations Involving Explanatory Style Ostensibly So Low?

Most research studies find that explanatory style correlates in the familiar .20 to .30 range with other variables, such as depression, poor achievement, and illness. This strikes some onlookers as disappointingly low. I dismissed this criticism altogether. Correlations in this range are typical for personality research in particular and social science research in general. Indeed, when recast as Rosenthal and Rubin (1982) have suggested, these ostensibly low correlations become much more impressive.

I find the Rosenthal and Rubin (1982) argument so com- pelling that I expected no comment at all concerning my use of it to evaluate explanatory style research. However, Gotlib repeats the criticism that correlations between .20 and .30 are low. I am oblivious to this problem, presumably, because of my optimistic explanatory style. In passing, let me note that my friends would find it hilarious to hear me described as an optimist concerning anything, even correlation coefficients. How could a lifelong fan of the Chicago Cubs' ever be an optimist?

But to focus on the conceptual point, I draw attention to a more recent discussion by Rosenthal (1990), which makes the same point that correlations in the .20 to .30 range are hardly low. He provided some startling examples of what happens to well-accepted research findings in the natural sciences when they are recast as correlation coefficients. So, the correlation between a daily aspirin and reduced like- lihood of a heart attack is r = .03. The point of such examples, of course, is that the "modest" correlations about which psychologists can be so defensive frequently exceed the magnitude of other relationships that are significant in the full sense of the word.

Abramson et al. go beyond my general conclusion to make an important point about how to judge the magnitude of correlation coefficients: Let one's theory decide. Because most studies of explanatory style collapse across factors deemed important by theory-such as the occurrence or non- occurrence of bad life events-there is often a good reason to expect resulting correlations to be low. And under other circumstances, correlations with explanatory style may be too high, calling theory into question.

'This biographical detail no doubt explains why my baseball metaphor failed to clarify things for those commentators who know something about real baseball, as it exists outside the "Friendly Confines."

Issues Deserving Further Exploration

My overall conclusion in the target article was that more is known about the measurement of explanatory style than about its meaning. Despite gaps in theory and research, explanatory style is useful and interesting. Future inquiry should be directed at such substantive questions as the origins of this individual difference, how it relates to physical functioning, the consequences of changing this characteristic through therapy, whether people differ in the consistency of explanatory style, and most broadly, why explanatory style has such a broad array of correlates.

My overall conclusion now, after reading and reflecting on the commentaries, is still the same. However, there are more gaps in theory and research than I had originally identified. And there are more areas deserving further exploration than the ones I suggested. Here is just a brief list of some of the issues raised in the commentaries that I did not address in the target article.

1. Explanatory versus attributional style. Abramson et al. ask why several years ago I started to use the term explanatory style in place of attributional style, the original name given to this individual difference (cf. Seligman, Abramson, Semmel, & von Baeyer, 1979). The intent of the switch was to be clear that not all aspects of attribution were encom- passed by this construct (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). In- stead, our interest was focused specifically on causal explanations. Perhaps if researchers continue to expand the meaning of this individual difference, as discussed earlier, a return to the broader term would be justified.

2. Biological substrate. Although I have just stated that explanatory style is not a literal thing, the relationship between this construct and biological processes deserves further attention, as Contrada notes. Two of the important correlates of pessimistic explanatory style are depression and physical illness, very much biological phenomena. It seems as if a possible biological substrate for explanatory style can be sensibly sought. Perhaps the origins of explanatory style are to be found not just in specific experiences but also in one's temperament.

3. Overlap with other constructs. Although I have noted the overlap of explanatory style and other personal- control cognates, I should further have observed that explanatory style is perhaps related to a host of additional individual differences, a point that Abramson et al., Hammen, and Tennen and Affleck make. Said another way, the convergent and discriminant validity of explanatory style has not been well established. Information about the empirical links between explanatory style and other constructs is necessary to get a full sense of the meaning of explanatory style.

Snyder sketched an interesting parallel between explanatory style and various self-theories. This is a different way to look at explanatory style, and quite possibly a fruitful perspective. After all, explanatory style is not simply a heap of miscellaneous causal beliefs but rather a theory about one's own relationship to the world.

4. The role of reality. Explanatory style is usually regarded as an influence "when all other things are equal," but this condition is rarely satisfied when the focus is on real people. Not the least of the other things going on besides explanatory style is the external reality in which people live. Reality shapes explanatory style as well as determining be-



56 PETERSON

havior in countless ways that have nothing to do with causal attributions.

Learned helplessness research started with a focus on external reality (in the form of uncontrollable aversive stimuli), but investigations of explanatory style have retreated very much into someone's head. Zullow argues that external reality is not simply a confound in understanding how someone responds to bad events but a critical factor in its own right. Typical explanatory style research, in particular my own studies, ignores reality. This argument is echoed by implication in the criticism by Hammen that reification of explanatory style blinds the investigator to external determinants of behavior. Lefcourt also touches on the role of reality by suggesting domain-specific measures of explanatory style.

Snyder observes that causal explanations may be used to negotiate reality. This negotiation can be intrapersonal as well as interpersonal, so again, the role of reality is under- scored. In future investigations of explanatory style, the importance of the external world-particularly in the form of other people-should be explicitly investigated.

Along these lines, Brewin suggests that explanatory style research has been asocial. I agree with this point and note that it is doubly ironic. First, attributional concepts originated in social psychology, and second, depression very much entails social disruption. Once again, history makes sense of what is otherwise puzzling. Helplessness theory came out of the animal-learning laboratory; attributional concepts were then grafted onto it. What was lost in the process was the social context of attributions.2

As mentioned by Brewin, Hilton's (1990) attempts to put attributions back in social interaction are laudable and an example for explanatory style theorists and researchers to follow. One of the points Hilton stressed was that, when attributions are used in conversation, they usually follow certain conventions, including sticking to the matter at hand. Perhaps people with a pessimistic explanatory style create problems for themselves because they violate this conven- tion. Internal, stable, and global explanations (i.e., character flaws) are often not germane in explaining to another person why bad events occurred. If people habitually use these in conversation, they may create or exacerbate social awk- wardness and thus bring about depression and other negative consequences (cf. Coyne, 1976).

5. Processes and mechanisms. Learned helplessness theory is an account of the process by which people become passive and ineffective following bad events. Laboratory studies of helplessness are well-suited to investigating such hypothesized processes, whereas correlational investigations using the ASQ are much less appropriate. Relatedly, helplessness theory specifies a fair number of parameters, and individual studies grapple with only a few at a time. The net effect is that current investigations of explanatory style reveal more about distant correlates than about the mechanisms that presumably give rise to them. Contrada, Ham- men, and Zullow call for a closer look at these mechanisms, and I assume that a return to the experimental laboratory might be a reasonable way to take this look. Alternatively, correlational researchers should make greater use of longitu- dinal designs and causal modeling techniques.

2Explanatory style researchers have not been alone in neglecting the social context of attributions; sometimes attribution researchers give no sign whatsoever that they are social psychologists.

6. What about helplessness theory? Anderson and Deu- ser argue strongly that the specific claims of the reformulated learned helplessness model have not been supported by the research. Although studies of explanatory style support the general premise that attributions influence reactions to events, this premise is hardly unique to the helplessness reformulation. When looking at the more specific predictions of the helplessness model, Anderson and Deuser conclude that "we can think of no major area of research in which the theory and the data purportedly supporting the theory are as unrelated as in studies of the LH model of depression."

This conclusion is exaggerated. But Anderson and Deu- ser's argument nonetheless demands consideration. Support for helplessness theory is indeed mixed; some predictions have indeed received much more attention than others. Still, it is difficult to offer a single conclusion about the empirical status of helplessness theory. The model has never been presented in terms of a series of specific predictions, which would allow a box-score evaluation. Even if the helplessness model were expressed in propositional form, it would have to be recognized that some predictions are more important than others, because they are more general claims. I suspect that these more general claims are precisely the ones with which Anderson and Deuser are unimpressed because they are not unique.

Even if other theories could generate the same predictions as the helplessness model, the fact remains that this model did generate them. Helplessness theory and research directed our attention to causal attributions as mediators of the effects of uncontrollability, to explanatory style as a dispositional influence on these mediators, and to depression, poor achievement in school and at work, and ill health as possible correlates of explanatory style. Part of the value of a theory is the degree to which it generates research; on this score, the helplessness model is a peach, and it would be a mistake to dismiss the importance of the theory to all this research. Echoing Abramson et al., I conclude that theory should continue to guide investigations of explanatory style.

Conclusion: On Being an Advocate

I did not write "The Meaning and Measurement of Ex- planatory Style" with Psychological Inquiry in mind as an outlet. Indeed, the possibility of publishing the article never occurred to me while I wrote it. I was just letting off some steam, something I do every couple of years when I feel that the "field" is not dealing with my work according to my desires. What are my desires? Simply to have my articles accepted immediately and without revision and to have my colleagues in psychology give me unconditional regard.

There is necessarily a gap between my desires and reality, but there are maddening times when this gap seems a chasm. I wrote this article in the wake of several rejected manu- scripts, followed shortly by the appearance of several articles that criticized explanatory style research. The criticisms raised in these articles were indeed good ones, but jux- taposed with my inability to get some of my recent thoughts and findings into print, I felt dismayed by them. There was apparently a debate going on, centering on my own work, and I was not participating.

In point of fact, my work receives generous attention, and the "field" has been very good to me. But sometimes I feel




frustrated, and I sit down and spew out a paper just for myself. Then I feel better, and I put the paper away. In the present case, on the way to the file cabinet, I received a letter from the editor of Psychological Inquiry describing his new journal and asking if I had any ideas about a possible target article.

I mailed my manuscript to New Jersey, with the eventual result being the issue of Psychological Inquiry that you have in your hands. The irony in this chronology is not lost on me. Not only am I participating in a debate about explanatory style, but my article is the explicit "target" of thoughtful comments by people for whom I have great respect. The experience has been exhilarating on the one hand yet sobering on the other. It has given me much reason to think about the business of doing psychology, the publish-and-perish game, as I like to call it. "Meaning and Measurement" began in a sulk, but it culminated in some genuine self-knowledge.

I am an advocate of explanatory style. I never would have said this about myself before reading the commentaries and noting my reactions to them, but the label fits. Being an advocate gives one's work a certain flavor. "Positive" results may be given more weight (as Hammen implies). Mention of other lines of work may be cursory (as Lefcourt and Weiner lament). Challenges by other researchers may be overlooked (as Anderson and Deuser charge). Theory may be used rather than tested (as Abramson et al. observe). Striking findings- the "gee whiz" correlates for which explanatory style is now well-known-may be pursued (as Zullow points out).

An advocate pushes the limits of an idea, and it is never clear how much of the success of a given idea so pushed is due to its inherent validity and how much to the perseverance and/or skill of the advocate. Learned helplessness in general and explanatory style in particular have been pushed quite a distance over the years, and the journey is far from over. These concepts have captivated contemporary psychologists and annoyed them immensely. I think this is the nature of advocacy.

According to textbooks, scientists are not supposed to be advocates, but I think that science needs advocates who sim- plify and generalize just as much as it needs critics who qualify and agonize.3 Advocates and critics very much need each other, as the exchanges in Psychological Inquiry dem- onstrate. May they continue, and may we all prosper.

Note

Christopher Peterson, Department of Psychology, Univer- sity of Michigan, 580 Union Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

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31 am reminded of the venerable personality dimension of leveling versus sharpening (Gardner, Jackson, & Messick, 1960).



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Further Thoughts on Explanatory Style