The attributional Style Questionnaire

✍ Scribed by Christopher Peterson; Amy Semmel; Carl von Baeyer; Lyn Y. Abramson; Gerald I. Metalsky; Martin E. P. Seligman

• Book ID: 105105039
• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1982
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 669 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0147-5916
• DOI: 10.1007/bf01173577

✦ Synopsis

Of current interest are the causal attributions offered by depressives for the good and bad events in their lives. One important attributional account of depression is the reformulated learned helplessness model, which proposes that depressive symptoms are associated with an attributional style in which uncontrollable bad events are attributed to internal (versus external), stable (versus unstable), and global (versus specific) causes. We describe the A ttributional Style Questionnaire, which measures individual differences in the use of these attributional dimensions. We report means, reliabilities, intercorrelations, and test-retest stabilities for a sample of 130 undergraduates. Evidence for the questionnaire's validity is discussed. The Attributional Style Questionnaire promises to be a reliable and valid instrument.