Attribution of Depression to Internal-External and Stable-Unstable Causes: Preliminary Investigation

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of severity, consistency, and typicalness of information about a hypothetical case of depression on causal explanations for depression. 119 undergraduates responded to brief descriptions of a depressed individual by rating (1 to 6) the extent to which the depression was due to each of four types of causes: internal stable, internal unstable, external stable, and external unstable. Severity was associated with greater attribution to internal stable causes. The consistency of the depression tended to produce attribution to stable causes, and typicalness tended to produce attribution to external causes.