Attributional style and depressive symptoms among children.

Abstract

The reformulation of helplessness theory proposes that an insidious attributional style accompanies and predisposes depressive symptoms To date, all research investigating the reformulation has used adult subjects In the present study, we investigated predictions of the reformulation among 8-13-year-old children Children who attributed bad events to internal, stable, and global causes were more likely to report depressive symptoms than were children who attributed these events to external, unstable, and specific causes This depressive attributional style predicted depressive symptoms 6 months later, suggesting that it may be a risk factor for depression Finally, children's style for bad events and their depressive symptoms converged with those of their mothers, but not with those of their fathers