Certainty-related beliefs and depressive symptomatology: Concurrent and longitudinal relationships

Although depression has been associated with both uncertainty about the cau ses of events and certainty that negative events will happen, little is kno wn about the relationship between these two types of certainty-related beli efs. A 6-week prospective study assessed the concurrent and longitudinal re lationships among causal uncertainty, depressive predictive certainty, unco ntrollability, and depressive symptomatology. Causal uncertainty and depres sive predictive certainty were not related either concurrently or longitudi nally. Depressive predictive certainty was associated with increases in dep ressive symptomatology over time and causal uncertainty, was shown to be a concomitant of depression. Perceptions of uncontrollability were found to b e an antecedent of causal uncertainty, as well as a consequence of both cau sal uncertainty and depression. Uncontrollability, however, was not related to depressive predictive certainty. Implications of these results for mode ls of causal uncertainty and hopelessness depression are examined.