Self-concept, Attributional Style and Depression

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate how self-concept and attributional style are related to depression in a student group. On the basis of an inventory, 166 advanced teacher students were scored on general and academic self-esteem, attribution for positive and negative events, and depression. The two self-esteem variables were found to constitute important predictors of depression, while the contributions of the attributional variables were of minor importance. In addition, pessimistic attributions to both positive and negative events resulted in higher depression than pessimistic attributions to either kind of events, and to neither kind of events. Finally, factor analysis resulted in interpretable solutions.