CROSS-VALIDATING A CAUSAL MODEL RELATING ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE, SELF-ESTEEM, AND DEPRESSION - AN HEURISTIC STUDY

Pillow, West, and Reich, using path analysis in 1991, were unable to c onfirm the causal model predicted from the reformulated learned helple ssness theory of Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale which links the dime nsions of attributional style with self-esteem and depression. Because their failure to confirm the model may have been due to their using n ormal subjects instead of psychiatric patients, the model was retested in the present study on psychiatric patients, many of whom had been d iagnosed as depressed. Although the Abramson, et al. model was once ag ain not confirmed, neither was the alternative model proposed by Pillo w, et al. The model that fitted the data best in this study differed f rom both of these models and indicated that all three attributional di mensions affect depression solely through the mediation of self-esteem .