The attributional reformulation of the learned helplessness model of depression proposes that causal attributions about negative outcomes play a causal role in reactive depression. This research tested this hypothesis by studying the causal role of attributions in depression in 180 college students. On two occasions separated by 1 month, students were administered a battery of tests that included an attributional style questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory. The attributional dimensions of internality, stability, and globality were found to be correlated with depression; when the possible causal role of attributions was tested through the use of cross-lagged panel correlational analysis, the hypothesis that stability and globality attributions for bad outcomes might be causes of depression was supported. There was no support, however, for the hypothesis that internal attributions for bad outcomes are a cause of depression. Evidence was also found that unstable attributions for good outcomes may function as a cause of depression.

The hypothesis was tested that depressed students, unlike nondepressed students, would show less optimism for success when a chance-determined task was given under high-illusion-of-control conditions than under low-illusion-of-control conditions. Subjects placed bets on a dice game; the throwing of the dice was either under player-control (high illusion) or croupier-control (low illusion) conditions. As predicted, depressed subjects were more confident of success in the croupier-control condition, and nondepressed subjects were more confident of success in the player-control condition. The results support the view that depressed subjects are characterized by a sense of personal incompetence.

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The attributional reformulation of the learned helplessness model of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) holds that depression-prone individuals are characterized by a certain attributional style. Specifically, they are seen as making internal, stable, and global attributions for negative outcomes. One implication of the attributional model tested by the present study, is that depression-prone persons should not evince this attributional style for negative outcomes that occur to others. The data presented here supported this prediction. Depressed subjects made self-attributions for negative outcomes that were significantly more internal, stable, and global than those of nondepressed subjects, while no differences were observed when both groups made attributions for the negative outcomes of a target other. The implications of these results for the attributional model of depression are discussed.

Investigated a factor analysis of the responses of mildly depressed college students to the items of the Beck Depression Inventory (N = 446). A varimax rotation of a principal‐axis factor analysis yielded only one well‐defined factor, “Hopelessness,” which was characterized by sadness, pessimism, dissatisfaction and suicidal thoughts. The depression syndrome for this mildly depressed group was unlike syndromes previously reported for a psychiatric population.