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Depression, psychopathology, and self‐serving attributions
Author(s) -
Gotlib Ian H.,
Olson James M.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1983.tb00617.x
Subject(s) - attribution , psychology , psychopathology , depression (economics) , affect (linguistics) , clinical psychology , task (project management) , psychiatry , developmental psychology , social psychology , management , communication , economics , macroeconomics
Depressed and non‐depressed psychiatric in‐patients and non‐depressed non‐psychiatric controls classified their performance on a verbal recognition task as either a success or a failure, and made attributions about the causes of their perceived success or failure. In all three groups, subjects who classified their performance as a success attributed their outcome more to internal and less to external factors than did subjects who classified their performance as a failure. These results suggest that depression and attributional style may not necessarily be related. Discussion centres on the idea that individuals' expectations of success can affect their subsequent attributions.