Insight into Attributional Style: A Replication and Extension

1
Insight into Attributional Style A Replication
and Extension Michael T. Moore David M. Fresco,
Kent State University
INTRODUCTION The depressive realism hypothesis
posits that depressed individuals, relative to
their nondepressed counterparts, are more
accurate in their perceptions of events (see
Alloy Abramson, 1988). Findings in support of
depressive realism, however, stand in stark
contrast to expectations derived from the theory
underlying cognitive therapy of depression (CT
Beck, Rush, Shaw, Emery, 1979). The theory
behind CT hypothesizes that a bias for perceiving
events negatively in depressed individuals is the
hallmark cognitive diathesis of Major Depressive
Disorder. In addition, it predicts that
elimination of this bias is the key to the
alleviation of the disorder with which it is
associated. Prior research (Moore Fresco, in
press) has attempted to address this theoretical
paradox. However, the primary strength of the
work of Moore and Fresco is in allowing the
debate regarding perceptual accuracy to inform
the etiology of depression by studying the
accuracy with which dysphoric individuals assign
causes to events in their lives. Attributional
style refers to the habitual way that individuals
assign causes to events. According to the theory
in which attribution style is embedded,
hopelessness theory (Abramson, Metalsky, Alloy,
1989), individuals who see negative events as
arising from stable and global causes are
especially vulnerable to depression in the face
of negative life events. Attributional style is
assessed via a self-report measure called the
Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ Peterson,
et al., 1982) or via content analysis of
naturally occurring speech also known as the CAVE
technique (Peterson et al., 1992). Moore and
Fresco (in press) examined the attributional
style ratings made by both dysphoric and
nondysphoric participants, and how these ratings
differed from objective assessments of the same
materials made by trained raters. An identical
comparison was made for individuals at risk for
and not at risk for depression. A sample of 239
undergraduate students was collected from a
larger screening sample based on their degree of
relative risk for depression. Contrary to
expectations derived from the depressive realism
hypothesis, nondysphoric individuals exhibited
less realistic attributions as compared to
dysphoric individuals. In addition, nondysphoric
participants were not found to possess a
significant degree of attributional bias (d
.09) while dysphoric participants were found to
be pessimistically biased (d -1.05). Further,
individuals at risk for depression evidenced a
pessimistic bias (d -1.82), while individuals
not at risk evidenced an optimistic bias,
although to a lesser extent (d .79). However,
this result, while quite robust, required
replication. This replication was the primary
goal of the current investigation.

• DISCUSSION
• These findings both largely confirm the results
  of Moore and Fresco (in press) and do not support
  the depressive realism hypothesis, in addition
• Individuals at risk for depression were found to
  be less realistic than participants not at risk,
  and were biased in favor of viewing events
  pessimistically
• Participants at risk for depression were found to
  be optimistically biased
• When both attributional style and depression were
  considered together, the effect for attributional
  style on realism was more robust, indicating that
  the depressive realism effect may be better
  accounted for by the association between
  depression and one or more of its cognitive risk
  factors
• Limitations
• Participants consisted of relatively high-
  functioning college students, resulting in
  uncertain generalizability to the general public
• The lack of other methods of assessing realism
  may mean that the results of this study are
  specific to the assessment methods employed here
• Future Studies
• Research is currently underway that attempts to
  replicate the current results in a
  treatment-seeking sample, with measures of
  perceptual bias not reliant on self-report that
  can establish the convergent validity of the CAVE
  methodology employed here and in Moore and Fresco
  (in press)

ABSTRACT The current investigation attempted
to replicate the work of Moore and Fresco (in
press) and establish the initial psychometric
properties of a purely self-report measure of
insight into causal attributions, the
Attributional Style Insight Scale (ASIS). A
sample of 78 undergraduate participants recruited
from a larger screening sample of 635 based on
their self-reported attributional style. Results
replicated Moore and Fresco (in press) and found
that participants at risk for depression were
biased in their attributional style ratings
(Cohens 1992 d -1.69), whereas the ratings
of individuals not at risk were optimistically
biased (d 1.22). Unlike prior work, level of
dysphoria did not differentiate the level of
objectivity in these ratings (f .16).

• RESULTS
• To determine if degree of realism differentiated
  dysphoric from nondysphoric participants and
  those at risk versus those not a risk for
  depression, Multivariate ANOVA with BDI
  (Low/High) and ASQ Pessimism Status (Low/High)
  as grouping variables and the CAVE discrepancy
  score as the DV were conducted and found (see
  Fig. 1)
• Nonsignificant main effect for BDI Group, F(1,
  64) 1.53, p .22, f .16
• Significant main effect for ASQ Group, F(1, 64)
  22.21, p lt .001, f .61
• Non-significant ASQ x BDI Group interaction,
  F(1, 64) .46, p .50, f .09
• Follow-Up Analysis using One-Sample T-Tests on
  both the High and Low Pessimism Groups
  individually to determine if their discrepancy
  score differed from 0 (no discrepancy/perfect
  objectivity) found
• For the Low Pessimism Group, t(45) 4.08, p lt
  .001, d 1.22
• For the High Pessimism Group, t(18) -3.58, p
  .002, d -1.69

• METHODS
• Participants
• 65 participants screened from a sample of 635
  undergraduate students
• 33 male, 67 female
• 1 Asian, 6 African American, 89 Caucasian,
• 1 Hispanic, 4 Other
• Participants ranged from 18-50 years of age (M
  19.49, SD 3.87)
• Measures
• Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ Peterson,
  et al., 1982)
• Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI Beck, et al.,
  1996)
• Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations (CAVE
  Peterson, et al., 1992)

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Fig. 1