THE INFLUENCE OF SEX-TYPING AND ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE ON DEPRESSION AND ATTRIBUTIONS FOR SUCCESS AND FAILURE

This research endeavor sought to extend findings relevant to gender differences in the frequency of depression. Past research has consistently revealed twice as many depressive episodes among females than males. It was hypothesized that gender needed to be viewed in relation to sex role orientation to determine whether depression, and the cognitive mechanisms that precede it occur more frequently for feminine versus androgynous sex typed females. In addition, a measure of attributional style was employed to assess the link between attributions for success and failure, sex role orientation, and depression. A depressive attributional style was hypothesized to be more common among feminine typed subjects who, in turn, would report greater depression than androgynous females.;A group of 250 female introductory psychology students completed the PRF-Andro Questionnaire, and the Attribution Style Questionnaire. The data of 120 subjects whose scores met the inclusion criteria were retained for the principal analyses. There were 60 feminine and 60 androgynous females who were equally divided between those who made internal versus external attributions for failure. The subjects were given bogus success or failure feedback from a test of general reasoning ability and asked to complete mood inventories as well as make attributions for their performance.;The results of the present study indicated that subjects displayed a self-serving bias in making attributions for success versus failure. In addition, failure feedback exerted a negative impact on mood, regardless of sex role or attribution style. Neither sex role nor attribution style were predictive of depression scores or the nature of actual attributions for success versus failure feedback. Masculinity scores were positively correlated with self-esteem scores. Femininity scores were inversely correlated with self-esteem scores. Within the present sample, feminine typed women did not evidence more depression than androgynous subjects nor did they react more strongly to a failure experience. The Attribution Style Questionnaire was not predictive of attributions for performance on the test of general reasoning ability.