ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE, DAILY-LIFE EVENTS, AND HOPELESSNESS DEPRESSION -SUBTYPE VALIDATION BY PROSPECTIVE VARIABILITY AND SPECIFICITY OF SYMPTOMS

Citation
Lb. Alloy et al., ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE, DAILY-LIFE EVENTS, AND HOPELESSNESS DEPRESSION -SUBTYPE VALIDATION BY PROSPECTIVE VARIABILITY AND SPECIFICITY OF SYMPTOMS, Cognitive therapy and research, 21(3), 1997, pp. 321-344
Citations number
42
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology, Clinical
ISSN journal
01475916
Volume
21
Issue
3
Year of publication
1997
Pages
321 - 344
Database
ISI
SICI code
0147-5916(1997)21:3<321:ASDEAH>2.0.ZU;2-C
Abstract
We utilized a short-term, prospective, behavioral high-risk design wit h a daily diary methodology for assessing daily life events and sympto ms in order to examine whether attributional style and the attribution al style x events interaction predicted level, within-day, and across- days variability in the depressive disorder subtype, hopelessness depr ession, but not other depression symptoms. Nondepressed participants a t high or low risk for hopelessness depression symptoms based on their attributional styles for positive and negative events provided daily reports of their positive and negative life events and ratings of thei r highest, lowest, and average point for the day on 20 symptoms of dep ression vs, mania for 28 days. In accord with the hopelessness theory, attributionally high-risk participants exhibited higher levels and gr eater within-day variability and also tended to show greater across-da ys variability of hopelessness depression symptoms, bur not other depr ession symptoms, than attributionally low-risk participants. Across-da ys variability of hopelessness depression symptoms was further predict ed by the interaction of attributional style and total events (positiv e + negative), whereas within-day variability was a function of the ma in effects of attributional style and total events. Finally, as predic ted, hopelessness depression symptoms intercorrelated with each other more highly than they correlated with non-hopelessness depression symp toms. The findings are discussed with respect to their implications fo r the proposed hopelessness subtype of depression.