Ja. Ralph et S. Mineka, ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE AND SELF-ESTEEM - THE PREDICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS FOLLOWING A MIDTERM EXAM, Journal of abnormal psychology, 107(2), 1998, pp. 203-215
A midterm design was used to determine whether students' attributional
style for negative achievement events interacts with self-esteem and
a lower-than-expected exam grade to predict changes in measures of spe
cific and nonspecific depression and anxiety. Participants were 141 st
udents who completed baseline measures of attributional style and self
-esteem, as well as affective measures on several occasions before and
after receipt of midterm grades. A pessimistic attributional style fo
r negative events interacted with self-esteem and outcome to predict r
esidual changes in a combined measure of nonspecific distress and anxi
ous arousal (marginal trend) but not a combined measure of specific de
pressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, the greatest residual increases in di
stress occurred among low-self-esteem pessimists who experienced a non
failure outcome. These effects did not appear to be mediated by change
s in hopelessness.