DEPRESSIVE ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE IN CHILDREN: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEPRESSION AND CHILDREN'S EXPLANATIONS FOR THEIR TASK PERFORMANCE

The present study was concerned with children's attributions for success and failure. It was hypothesized that certain youngsters would show a depressive attributional bias wherein they attribute success to external factors or failure to personal factors. These notions were based on the cognitive model of depression in which depressed individuals are said to exaggerate their casual responsibility for negative events but to deny causal responsibility for positive events.;Ninety-six fifth and sixth grade children (48 boys and 48 girls) served as subjects. Half the sample were low achievers and half were middle to high achievers in reading. All children were initially administered the Children's Depression Inventory. Approximately two weeks later, each child was randomly assigned to one of four conditions, controlling for sex and reading achievement level: (1) Reading Task - Positive Outcome; (2) Reading Task - Negative Outcome; (3) Picture Task - Positive Outcome; (4) Picture Task - Negative Outcome. The child met individually with an experimenter who administered the task, followed by questionnaires to assess the child's attributions, expectancies, and affective reactions following success or failure.;As predicted, depressed children, in comparison to nondepressed children, made significantly higher attributions to external factors following success. They also tended to make higher attributions to internal factors following failure. Among the additional results was the finding that, on the academic task, low achievers who succeeded rated themselves as more surprised than those who failed; high achievers who failed rated themselves as more surprised than those who succeeded.;The findings provided support for the hypothesis that relatively depressed children would show a specific attributional bias. These findings were discussed in terms of their implications for children's performance in the classroom, and the maladaptive nature of this tendency to externalize success or internalize failure was emphasized. Finally, suggestions for intervention strategies to help children recognize and modify this bias were considered.