A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE AND DEPRESSION IN OLDER ADULTS.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

COLLINS, ROSEMARIE JANE MARROCCO.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Subjects (All):

Personality.

0625.

Local Subjects:

0625.

Physical Description:

189 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 46-09B.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between attributional style and depression in a noninstitutionalized elderly population age 65 and over. The sample consisted of 50 females and 21 males age 65 and older selected from among volunteers living in the community and attending a senior center. Four instruments were administered: (1) The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), (2) The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), (3) The General Information-Health Assessment Questionnaire (GIHAQ) and (4) The Stokes-Gordon Stress Scale (SGSS). Interviews and testing were done by the investigator, a registered nurse, and a trained assistant. Pearson correlation was applied to evaluate the relationship between attributional style and depression. Demographic and other data were analyzed to identify other potentially important relationships.

Attributional style is a concept of the learned helplessness model of depression which suggests that persons have a characteristic way of assigning cause to a life event or situation and that an internal, stable, and global attributional style for negative events is related to depression. It was hypothesized that attributional style influences the nature of depressive responses to aging, particularly that an internal, stable and global attributional style for negative life events and an external, unstable attributional style for positive events would be related to depression in the elderly.

The first hypothesis, that an internal, stable, and global attributional style for bad events is related to depression in the elderly, was not supported in the total sample but the relationship between attributional style and depression was found to be significant when tested in the 50 female respondents only. This result must be interpreted with caution, however, since the r values are low and the power is substantially reduced by the smaller sample.

The second hypothesis, that an external and unstable attributional style for good events is related to depression in the elderly, was partially supported in that a significant relationship was found between external attributions for good events and for the composite score for good events and depression. Although not predicted by the hypothesis, a significant relationship was also found between a specific attributional style for good events and depression.

Stress and health were found to be significant correlates of depression in this sample, as well. The findings of this study do not offer strong support for the reformulated theory of depression in this group of older adults and possible explanations for this are discussed.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-09, Section: B, page: 3253.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1985.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.