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Unemployment, attributional style and psychological well-being
Person. indiuid. 01% Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 659465, Printed in Great Britain All rights reserved
1987
0191-8869187 $3.00 + 0.00 Copyright 0 1987 Pergamon Journals Ltd
UNEMPLOYMENT, ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING WINEFIELD,
MARIKA
TIGGEMANN
and SHIRLEY
ANTHONY
H.
Department
of Psychology, University of Adelaide and School The Flinders University of South Australia
AND
SMITH
of Social Sciences,
(Received 13 October 1986) Summary-The proposition that attributional style is a risk factor for depression, with people who make external, unstable attributions for good outcomes, and internal, stable attributions for bad outcomes being particularly vulnerable, was tested in a study of employed and unemployed youngsters. Among the former, greater self-esteem was associated with internal attributions for good outcomes, and less depressive at&t was associated with internal, stable attributions for good outcomes. No such relationships were observed in the unemployed. By contrast, attributions for bad outcomes were related to both depressive affect and self-esteem in the unemployed, but were related only to depressive affect in the employed. In the unemployed, lower depressive affect and higher self-esteem were both associated with unstable attributions, and lower depressive affect was associated with external attributions. In the employed lower depressive affect was associated with external, unstable attributions. Although these relationships were generally consistent with the hypothesis, attributions made three years earlier when respondents were still at school were only weakly related to subsequent measures of psychological well-being. Moreover, many changed their attributions over time, a finding that casts doubt on the assumption that attributional style can be regarded as a stable characteristic in young people.
INTRODUCTION
According to the theory of learned helplessness, when people are faced with painful situations which they cannot control, they become helpless: they lose the desire to control situations and come to believe that they are not able to control them (Seligman, 1975). The helpless behaviour may also be accompanied by depressed affect, especially in the case of individuals exhibiting a particular kind of attributional style (Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978; Peterson and Seligman, 1984). Such an attributional style involves giving external, unstable causal attributions for good outcomes, while at the same time giving precisely the opposite (internal, stable) attributions for bad outcomes. The specific roles played by the internal-external and stable-unstable dimensions in the reformulated theory of learned helplessness are clearly elaborated by Peterson and Seligman (1984): “Internality of causal beliefs affects self-esteem loss following bad events. If the person explains a bad event by an internal factor, then self-esteem loss is more likely to occur. If a person explains the event by an external factor, then self-esteem loss is less likely to occur. Stability of causal beliefs affects the chronicity of helplessness and depression following bad events. If a bad event is explained by a cause that persists, depressive reactions to that event tend to persist” (p. 348). This theory is, of course, difficult to test experimentally for ethical reasons. Most theories about the harmful effects of chronic stress on people are tested indirectly, using animal subjects. This strategy, of course, is not feasible where the theory has to do with predicting individual differences on the basis of a hypothetical high level process such as the making of causal attributions. The testing of such a theory must rely on observations carried out on people exposed to a naturally occurring, unavoidable stressor. Not surprisingly, there is little direct evidence of this kind available. The present study presents both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a survey of employed and unemployed young people. Being unemployed was treated as a significant bad life event, and *This study was supported by Project Grant number 840740 from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. Requests for reprints should be sent to Anthony H. Winefield, Department of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Box 498 G.P.O., Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia. 659
660
ANTHONY H. WINEFIELD et al.
it was expected that the unemployed youngsters would show lower self-esteem and more depressive reactions than those who were employed. Within the unemployed group we looked at the hypothetical relation between internal causal attributions (for being unemployed) and self-esteem loss, as well as that between stable causal attributions (for being unemployed) and depressive reactions. Next, we looked at the possible relations between attributional style (internality and stability of attributions for good events and bad events) and self-esteem and depressive affect. Finally, we examined the attributional style assessed three years earlier when all the subjects were still at school. We were interested to see how well attributional style could predict later differences in self-esteem and depressive affect, as well as assessing its stability. METHOD
Subjects Nine-hundred and fifty-one young people took part in the study. Of these, 813 were employed (386 boys, 427 girls) and 138 were unemployed (70 boys, 68 girls). Their ages ranged from 18 to 20 years. Materials Data were obtained from a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire asked about the subjects’ current employment status, and included questions relating to causal attributions as well as the scales designed to measure adolescent self-esteem and depressive affect proposed by Rosenberg (1965). Attributional style was assessed by asking each of the following questions: ‘When good things happen to you, it is mostly because of (a) your abilities or intelligence, (b) the fact that you have tried very hard, (c) the situation you’re in, (d) good luck’ and ‘When bad things happen to you, it is mostly because of (a) lack of ability, (b) the fact that you didn’t try hard enough, (c) the situation you’re in, (d) bad luck.’ Attributions for unemployment were assessed by the question: ‘What is the main reason you do not have a job now? (a) lack of abilities or skills, (b) you didn’t try hard enough, (c) the situation you’re in, (d) bad luck.’ Replies were classified on the Internality and Stability dimensions. Thus (a) was classified as internal/stable, (b) as internal/unstable, (c) as external/stable, and (d) as external/unstable. Procedure All subjects had originally participated in a questionnaire survey that was carried out in 1980 (Time 1). They were drawn from each of the last three years of high school (Years 10, 11 and 12) which were equally represented. Students normally reach the age of 15, the minimum leaving age, in Year 10. They came from 12 randomly selected high schools in the Adelaide metropolitan area. In 1980 the questionnaires were administered, with the help of teachers, at school. Three years later (1983) similar questionnaire forms were distributed by mail (Time 2). RESULTS
The various statistical analyses performed on the results involved groups of varying size. For example, because there were many more employed than unemployed a small effect observed in the employed might well prove to be statistically significant, whereas a larger effect in the unemployed might fail to reach statistical significance using a uniform criterion of statistical significance. In order to try to avoid this problem, we chose to treat as statistically significant, effects associated with a probability as low as 0.05 only when the error degrees of freedom were less than 100 (which meant, in practice, less than 66). Otherwise, we adopted the more stringent 0.01 criterion of statistical significance. (In practice, this more stringent criterion applied when the error degrees of freedom exceeded 134). Self-esteem
and depressive
afSect of employed
Table 1 shows the mean self-esteem and unemployed boys and girls at the two times.
and unemployed
groups at each time
depressive affect scores for the employed and The employed groups both showed increases in
Attributional style Table
1. Mean self-esteem
GKXUI Employed boys Employed girls Unemployed boys Unemployed girls
and depressive times Self-esteem
Time 8.00 1.36 8.07 6.83
I
Time 2 8.81 8.71 1.77 7.44
661
affect scores at the two Detxessive Time 1.30 I .46 I .39 1.77
I
affect Time 2 0.88 0.90 I.61 I .58
self-esteem, the unemployed girls showed a somewhat smaller increase, and the unemployed boys showed a decrease. A repeated measures analysis of variance showed significant main effects for Employment Status, F(1,948)= 14.53, P
ANTHONY H. WINEFIELD et 01.
662
consequently less disappointed when they failed to do so. This possibility was examined by comparing the groups on two questions. The first asked them to rate the degree of difficulty they anticipated in finding a job (answered on a five-point scale from 1 = not hard to 5 = very hard) and the second asked about their expectations of how long it would take them to find work after leaving school (answered on a four-point scale: 1 = no time, 2 = less than 3 months, 3 = 336 months, 4 = more than 6 months). The groups were very similar in their reactions to the perceived difficulty question, although they did differ in their expectations of how long it would take to find a job. The employed expressed greater optimism (M = 2.61) than the unemployed (M = 2.83) F(l,948) = 9.28, P < 0.01, and the boys expressed greater optimism (M = 2.49) than the girls (M = 2.78) F(1,948) = 28.44, P < 0.001. On the other hand, the Employment Status x Sex interaction did not approach statistical significance, and, although the unemployed girls were less optimistic (M = 2.90) than the unemployed boys (M = 2.77), the difference was not statistically significant even when treated as a planned contrast. Attributional
style: attributions
for good outcomes
The pattern of attributions for good outcomes was similar for the employed and unemployed groups, and similar at the two times. The most popular attribution was internal unstable (effort), followed by external stable (situation), followed by internal stable (ability), and lastly external unstable (luck). Attributions,for good outcomes and self-esteem. Attributions for good outcomes were unrelated to self-esteem in the unemployed currently (Time 2) although they were related when the unemployed were at school (Time 1). Thus, self-esteem was higher for those who gave stable attributions (M = 7.99) than for those who gave unstable attributions (M = 7. lo), F( 1,134) = 7.80, P < 0.01. By comparison, in the employed group attributions for good outcomes were related to self-esteem at both times. At Time 2, the self-esteem scores were higher for those who gave internal attributions (M = 8.97) than for those who gave external attributions (M = 8.12) F(1,795) = 34.81, P < 0.001. A similar result was obtained from this group when they were at school: self-esteem scores for those giving internal attributions being higher (M = 8.06) than for those giving external attributions (M = 7.13) F(1,804) = 16.26, P < 0.001. Attributions for good outcomes and depressive afict. There was no relation between attributions for good outcomes and depressive affect for the unemployed at either Time 1 or Time 2. On the other hand there were relations between them at both times for the employed. At Time 2 depressive affect (M = 0.78) than for those who A similar result was observed gave internal attributions (M F(1,804) = 12.36, P < 0.001. Attributional
style: attributions
scores were lower for the employed who gave internal attributions gave external attributions (M = 1.24) F( 1,795) = 25.41, P < 0.001. at Time 1. Again, depressive affect scores were lower for those who = 1.32) than for those who gave external attributions (M = 1.56),
for bad outcomes
The pattern of attributions for bad outcomes was similar at both times for the unemployed, and for the employed at Time 1: the most popular attribution was internal unstable (effort), followed by external stable (situation), followed by external unstable (luck), and lastly internal stable (ability). By contrast, the employed at Time 2 showed a slightly different pattern, reversing the order of the last two and giving luck as the least frequent causal attribution. Attributions for bad outcomes and self-esteem. At Time 2, self-esteem scores in the unemployed were higher for those who made unstable attributions for bad outcomes (M = 7.96) than for those who made stable attributions (M = 7.12) F(1,134) = 7.68, P < 0.01. Separate analyses for each sex revealed that this relationship was much stronger in, and only significant for, the girls. For the unemployed girls, those who made unstable attributions for bad outcomes had higher self-esteem scores (M = 7.98) than those who made stable attributions (M = 6.62) F(1,66) = 4.24, P < 0.05. (Interestingly, this relationship was reversed when the unemployed youngsters were at school, with the self-esteem scores being higher for those who made stable attributions for bad outcomes (M = 7.73) than for those who made unstable attributions (M = 7.19) although this difference was
Attributional style
663
far from being statistically significant). There was no relationship between self-esteem and internality of attribution for bad outcomes in the unemployed. Attributions for bad outcomes and depressive a&t. In the unemployed at Time 2, depressive affect scores were lower for those making unstable attributions (M = 1.33) than for those making stable attributions (M = 1.95), F (1,134) = 8.89, P < 0.01. Analysis by sex showed that the difference was significant only for the boys. Those who made unstable attributions had lower scores (M = 1.26) than those who made stable attributions (M = 2.03), F(1,68) = 4.00, P < 0.05. (This relationship was not observed in the unemployed of either sex at Time 1.) In the employed at Time 2, as for the unemployed, depressive affect scores were lower for those who made unstable attributions (M = 0.79) than for those who made stable attributions (M = 1.OO), F (1,797) = 8.13, P < 0.01. (As with the unemployed, no such relationship was evident in the employed of either sex at Time 1.) Like the unemployed, the employed also exhibited no relationship between depressive affect and externality of causal attribution for bad outcome at either time.
Attributional
style as a predictor
of later dtflerences
In order to assess the predictive validity of attributional style, analyses of current self-esteem and depressive affect scores as a function of the earlier attributions for good and bad outcomes were carried out. Earlier attributions for good outcomes. Attributions for good outcomes at Time 1, were unrelated to self-esteem in the unemployed at Time 2, although they were weakly related to depressive affect in the boys. For the unemployed boys, depressive affect was higher for those who gave unstable attributions (M = 2.03) than for those who gave stable attributions (M = 1.15) F( 166) = 3.33, P < 0.10. (This difference would be statistically significant on a one-tailed test, which could be justified because the difference is in the directiotrpredicted by the theory.) Conversely, in the employed, attributions for good outcomes at Time 1 were related to self-esteem at Time 2, although not to depressive effect. Those who gave stable attributions at Time 1 had higher self-esteem scores at Time 2 (M = 8.95) than those who gave unstable attributions (M = 8.64) F (1,804) = 10.56, P < 0.001. When separate analyses were carried out on the boys and girls, only the girls showed the effect: those who gave stable attributions having higher self-esteem scores (M = 9.06) than those who gave unstable attributions (M = 8.53), F(1,421) = 11.24, P < 0.001. All of these differences were in the direction predicted by the theory. Earlier attributions for bad outcomes. As with attributions for good outcomes, attributions for bad outcomes at Time 1 were not related to self-esteem at Time 2 in the unemployed, although they were related to depressive affect in the girls but not the boys. The unemployed girls who had given external attributions for bad outcomes at Time 1 had lower depressive affect scores at Time 2 (M = 1.25) than those who had given internal attributions (M = 2.00), F(1,64) = 8.24, P < 0.01. In the employed, attributions for bad outcomes were not related either to self-esteem or to depressive affect.
Is attributional
style a stable characteristic?
In order to assess the stability of attributional style, a comparison was made of the attributions for good and bad outcomes made before and after leaving school for the employed and unemployed groups. The following four questions were asked with respect to each type of outcome: (1) What proportion of people made the same attribution at the different times? (2) Did the proportion differ between employed and unemployed groups? (3) Of those who changed, was there a tendency to change in some directions rather than others? (4) Was the type of change related to employment status? In fact there were no statistically significant associations between the proportion giving different causal attributions and either employment status or sex. Consequently the percentages reported below relate to the overall sample. In the case of good outcomes, 51% of the people gave the same attributions on each occasion as opposed to 49% who gave different attributions. In the case of bad outcomes, 50% of people gave the same attributions on each occasion and 50% gave different attributions.
664
ANTHONY
H.
WINEFIELD
et al.
Looking at the nature of the changed attributions for good outcomes, overall 36% changed along the stability dimension. Of those who changed 51% went from stable to unstable and 49% went from unstable to stable. In the case of the internality dimension, 33% changed. Of these, 66% went from external to internal attributions. Turning to changes in attributions for bad outcomes, 37% changed their attributions in terms of the stability dimension of whom 52% went from unstable to stable. In the case of the internality to internal dimension, 38% changed their attributions. Of these, 55% went from external attributions. DISCUSSION
Overall our results provide only limited support for the attributional reformulation of the theory of learned helplessness. Specific attributions for unemployment were certainly not related to self-esteem or depressive affect in the manner proposed by the theory. In fact, the only statistically significant effect, viz. higher self-esteem in unemployed girls making internal attributions, was in the opposite direction to that predicted by the theory. So far as attributional style is concerned, the kinds of causal attributions made for bad outcomes (in general) proved to be better predictors than attributions made for good outcomes (in general) for the unemployed, whereas the reverse was true for the employed. Moreover, in all cases the observed relations were in accordance with the theory. So far as ongoing attributional measures were concerned, the employed who made internal attributions for good outcomes displayed both higher self-esteem and lower depressive affect than those giving external attributions. Similarly, in the unemployed, the girls giving unstable attributions for bad outcomes, were higher in self-esteem than those giving stable attributions for bad outcomes, and the boys giving unstable attributions were lower in depressive affect than those giving stable attributions. The employed girls who gave unstable attributions for bad outcomes were also lower in depressive affect than those giving stable attributions. In the case of causal attributions for good and bad outcomes given earlier, and current measures of self-esteem and depressive affect, there was a similar difference between the employed and unemployed. For the unemployed girls an earlier tendency to attribute bad outcomes to external causes was associated with lower depressive affect. In the employed boys, an earlier tendency to attribute good outcomes to internal causes was associated with higher self-esteem, and in the employed girls, an earlier tendency to attribute good outcomes to stable causes was also associated with higher self-esteem. There was no relation between earlier causal attributions for good outcomes and current measures of self-esteem and depressive affect in the unemployed, neither was there any relation between earlier causal attributions for bad outcomes and current measures of self-esteem and depressive affect in the employed. Many of the differences predicted by the attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory were not apparent in our data when we related earlier attributions to later measures of self-esteem and depressive affect. On the other hand. it should be pointed out that all of the observed differences were in line with the theory. Some of the observed sex differences are worthy of comment, specifically those for which a significant effect was observed in one sex, but where no difference (or a slight difference in the opposite direction) was apparent in the other sex. In three cases, the sex differences involved only one sex exhibiting the predicted relationship between earlier attributions and ongoing measures of self-esteem or depressive affect. Thus, the employed girls who had earlier given stable attributions for good outcomes showed higher subsequent self-esteem than those who had given unstable attributions. Also, the unemployed boys who had earlier given stable attributions for good outcomes were subsequently less depressed than those who had given unstable attributions. Finally, the unemployed girls who had earlier given external attributions for bad outcomes were subsequently less depressed than those who had given internal attributions. The only finding that is somewhat surprising concerns the self-esteem difference in the unemployed girls between those attributing their unemployment to internal, as opposed to external, causes. According to learned helplessness theory, those attributing their unemployment to internal causes should have exhibited lower self-esteem, yet the reverse was true. In fact, the unemployed
Attributional style
665
girls differed initially from the other three subgroups in both self-esteem and depressive affect. They were the lowest in self-esteem and the highest in depressive affect initially, and, unlike the unemployed boys, actually showed a slight improvement on both measures, rather than a deterioration. These differences could not be explained in terms of differences in the subjective importance of employment (either to themselves or to their parents), neither could they be explained in terms of different expectations about the likelihood of finding employment. The remaining tenable explanation seems to be that, for whatever reason, girls in State high schools display lower self-esteem and higher depressive affect than boys. These differences have largely disappeared three years after leaving school. The fact that around half the respondents gave different attributions (for both good and bad outcomes) at the different times suggests that attributional style can scarcely be regarded as a particularly stable personality characteristic in adolescents. Whether it is more stable over a period of years in more mature subjects remains to be seen. It should be acknowledge that our measures of attributional style may have been unreliable and this could explain the fact that so many of our subjects changed their attributions between the earlier and later times. We did not use the Attributional Style Questionnaire developed by Peterson, Semmel, von Baeyer, Abramson, Metalsky and Seligman (1982) for two cogent reasons. First, it had not been published when we began our study in 1980. Second, it would, in any case, have been far too long to include in a questionnaire which had to be completed within a school lesson period of 40 minutes. Overall, our results do not encourage us to dispute the recent conclusion of Brewin (1985) and Coyne and Gotlib (1983) that the reformulated learned helplessness theory has so far received only weak empirical support as a model of depression. On the other hand, the differences that we found between our employed and unemployed groups as well as the recent findings reported by Baum, Fleming, and Reddy (1986) suggest that unemployment may well be a naturally occurring natural stressor that provides the opportunity for further useful tests of the theory. REFERENCES Abramson L., Seligman M. E. P. and Teasdale J. D. (1978) Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. J. abnorm. Psychol. 87, 49-74. Baum A. Fleming R. and Reddy D. M. (1986) Unemployment stress: Loss of control, reactance and learned helplessness. Sot. Sci. Med. 22, 509-516. Brewin C. R. (1985) Depression and causal attributions: What is their relation? Psychol. Bull. 98, 297-309. Coyne J. C. and Gotlib I. H. (1983) The role of cognition in depression: A critical appraisal. Psycho/. Bull. 94, 472-505. Peterson C. and Seligman M. E. P. (1984) Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence. Psychol. Rev. 91, 347-374. Peterson C., Semmel A., von Baeyer C., Abramson L Y., Metalsky G. I. and Seligman M. E. P. (1982) The attributional style questionnaire. Cognif Ther. Res. 6, 287-300. Rosenberg M. (1965) Sociefy and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton University Press. Seligman M. E. P. (1975) Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death. Freeman, San Francisco.
1987
0191-8869187 $3.00 + 0.00 Copyright 0 1987 Pergamon Journals Ltd
UNEMPLOYMENT, ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING WINEFIELD,
MARIKA
TIGGEMANN
and SHIRLEY
ANTHONY
H.
Department
of Psychology, University of Adelaide and School The Flinders University of South Australia
AND
SMITH
of Social Sciences,
(Received 13 October 1986) Summary-The proposition that attributional style is a risk factor for depression, with people who make external, unstable attributions for good outcomes, and internal, stable attributions for bad outcomes being particularly vulnerable, was tested in a study of employed and unemployed youngsters. Among the former, greater self-esteem was associated with internal attributions for good outcomes, and less depressive at&t was associated with internal, stable attributions for good outcomes. No such relationships were observed in the unemployed. By contrast, attributions for bad outcomes were related to both depressive affect and self-esteem in the unemployed, but were related only to depressive affect in the employed. In the unemployed, lower depressive affect and higher self-esteem were both associated with unstable attributions, and lower depressive affect was associated with external attributions. In the employed lower depressive affect was associated with external, unstable attributions. Although these relationships were generally consistent with the hypothesis, attributions made three years earlier when respondents were still at school were only weakly related to subsequent measures of psychological well-being. Moreover, many changed their attributions over time, a finding that casts doubt on the assumption that attributional style can be regarded as a stable characteristic in young people.
INTRODUCTION
According to the theory of learned helplessness, when people are faced with painful situations which they cannot control, they become helpless: they lose the desire to control situations and come to believe that they are not able to control them (Seligman, 1975). The helpless behaviour may also be accompanied by depressed affect, especially in the case of individuals exhibiting a particular kind of attributional style (Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978; Peterson and Seligman, 1984). Such an attributional style involves giving external, unstable causal attributions for good outcomes, while at the same time giving precisely the opposite (internal, stable) attributions for bad outcomes. The specific roles played by the internal-external and stable-unstable dimensions in the reformulated theory of learned helplessness are clearly elaborated by Peterson and Seligman (1984): “Internality of causal beliefs affects self-esteem loss following bad events. If the person explains a bad event by an internal factor, then self-esteem loss is more likely to occur. If a person explains the event by an external factor, then self-esteem loss is less likely to occur. Stability of causal beliefs affects the chronicity of helplessness and depression following bad events. If a bad event is explained by a cause that persists, depressive reactions to that event tend to persist” (p. 348). This theory is, of course, difficult to test experimentally for ethical reasons. Most theories about the harmful effects of chronic stress on people are tested indirectly, using animal subjects. This strategy, of course, is not feasible where the theory has to do with predicting individual differences on the basis of a hypothetical high level process such as the making of causal attributions. The testing of such a theory must rely on observations carried out on people exposed to a naturally occurring, unavoidable stressor. Not surprisingly, there is little direct evidence of this kind available. The present study presents both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a survey of employed and unemployed young people. Being unemployed was treated as a significant bad life event, and *This study was supported by Project Grant number 840740 from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. Requests for reprints should be sent to Anthony H. Winefield, Department of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Box 498 G.P.O., Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia. 659
660
ANTHONY H. WINEFIELD et al.
it was expected that the unemployed youngsters would show lower self-esteem and more depressive reactions than those who were employed. Within the unemployed group we looked at the hypothetical relation between internal causal attributions (for being unemployed) and self-esteem loss, as well as that between stable causal attributions (for being unemployed) and depressive reactions. Next, we looked at the possible relations between attributional style (internality and stability of attributions for good events and bad events) and self-esteem and depressive affect. Finally, we examined the attributional style assessed three years earlier when all the subjects were still at school. We were interested to see how well attributional style could predict later differences in self-esteem and depressive affect, as well as assessing its stability. METHOD
Subjects Nine-hundred and fifty-one young people took part in the study. Of these, 813 were employed (386 boys, 427 girls) and 138 were unemployed (70 boys, 68 girls). Their ages ranged from 18 to 20 years. Materials Data were obtained from a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire asked about the subjects’ current employment status, and included questions relating to causal attributions as well as the scales designed to measure adolescent self-esteem and depressive affect proposed by Rosenberg (1965). Attributional style was assessed by asking each of the following questions: ‘When good things happen to you, it is mostly because of (a) your abilities or intelligence, (b) the fact that you have tried very hard, (c) the situation you’re in, (d) good luck’ and ‘When bad things happen to you, it is mostly because of (a) lack of ability, (b) the fact that you didn’t try hard enough, (c) the situation you’re in, (d) bad luck.’ Attributions for unemployment were assessed by the question: ‘What is the main reason you do not have a job now? (a) lack of abilities or skills, (b) you didn’t try hard enough, (c) the situation you’re in, (d) bad luck.’ Replies were classified on the Internality and Stability dimensions. Thus (a) was classified as internal/stable, (b) as internal/unstable, (c) as external/stable, and (d) as external/unstable. Procedure All subjects had originally participated in a questionnaire survey that was carried out in 1980 (Time 1). They were drawn from each of the last three years of high school (Years 10, 11 and 12) which were equally represented. Students normally reach the age of 15, the minimum leaving age, in Year 10. They came from 12 randomly selected high schools in the Adelaide metropolitan area. In 1980 the questionnaires were administered, with the help of teachers, at school. Three years later (1983) similar questionnaire forms were distributed by mail (Time 2). RESULTS
The various statistical analyses performed on the results involved groups of varying size. For example, because there were many more employed than unemployed a small effect observed in the employed might well prove to be statistically significant, whereas a larger effect in the unemployed might fail to reach statistical significance using a uniform criterion of statistical significance. In order to try to avoid this problem, we chose to treat as statistically significant, effects associated with a probability as low as 0.05 only when the error degrees of freedom were less than 100 (which meant, in practice, less than 66). Otherwise, we adopted the more stringent 0.01 criterion of statistical significance. (In practice, this more stringent criterion applied when the error degrees of freedom exceeded 134). Self-esteem
and depressive
afSect of employed
Table 1 shows the mean self-esteem and unemployed boys and girls at the two times.
and unemployed
groups at each time
depressive affect scores for the employed and The employed groups both showed increases in
Attributional style Table
1. Mean self-esteem
GKXUI Employed boys Employed girls Unemployed boys Unemployed girls
and depressive times Self-esteem
Time 8.00 1.36 8.07 6.83
I
Time 2 8.81 8.71 1.77 7.44
661
affect scores at the two Detxessive Time 1.30 I .46 I .39 1.77
I
affect Time 2 0.88 0.90 I.61 I .58
self-esteem, the unemployed girls showed a somewhat smaller increase, and the unemployed boys showed a decrease. A repeated measures analysis of variance showed significant main effects for Employment Status, F(1,948)= 14.53, P
ANTHONY H. WINEFIELD et 01.
662
consequently less disappointed when they failed to do so. This possibility was examined by comparing the groups on two questions. The first asked them to rate the degree of difficulty they anticipated in finding a job (answered on a five-point scale from 1 = not hard to 5 = very hard) and the second asked about their expectations of how long it would take them to find work after leaving school (answered on a four-point scale: 1 = no time, 2 = less than 3 months, 3 = 336 months, 4 = more than 6 months). The groups were very similar in their reactions to the perceived difficulty question, although they did differ in their expectations of how long it would take to find a job. The employed expressed greater optimism (M = 2.61) than the unemployed (M = 2.83) F(l,948) = 9.28, P < 0.01, and the boys expressed greater optimism (M = 2.49) than the girls (M = 2.78) F(1,948) = 28.44, P < 0.001. On the other hand, the Employment Status x Sex interaction did not approach statistical significance, and, although the unemployed girls were less optimistic (M = 2.90) than the unemployed boys (M = 2.77), the difference was not statistically significant even when treated as a planned contrast. Attributional
style: attributions
for good outcomes
The pattern of attributions for good outcomes was similar for the employed and unemployed groups, and similar at the two times. The most popular attribution was internal unstable (effort), followed by external stable (situation), followed by internal stable (ability), and lastly external unstable (luck). Attributions,for good outcomes and self-esteem. Attributions for good outcomes were unrelated to self-esteem in the unemployed currently (Time 2) although they were related when the unemployed were at school (Time 1). Thus, self-esteem was higher for those who gave stable attributions (M = 7.99) than for those who gave unstable attributions (M = 7. lo), F( 1,134) = 7.80, P < 0.01. By comparison, in the employed group attributions for good outcomes were related to self-esteem at both times. At Time 2, the self-esteem scores were higher for those who gave internal attributions (M = 8.97) than for those who gave external attributions (M = 8.12) F(1,795) = 34.81, P < 0.001. A similar result was obtained from this group when they were at school: self-esteem scores for those giving internal attributions being higher (M = 8.06) than for those giving external attributions (M = 7.13) F(1,804) = 16.26, P < 0.001. Attributions for good outcomes and depressive afict. There was no relation between attributions for good outcomes and depressive affect for the unemployed at either Time 1 or Time 2. On the other hand there were relations between them at both times for the employed. At Time 2 depressive affect (M = 0.78) than for those who A similar result was observed gave internal attributions (M F(1,804) = 12.36, P < 0.001. Attributional
style: attributions
scores were lower for the employed who gave internal attributions gave external attributions (M = 1.24) F( 1,795) = 25.41, P < 0.001. at Time 1. Again, depressive affect scores were lower for those who = 1.32) than for those who gave external attributions (M = 1.56),
for bad outcomes
The pattern of attributions for bad outcomes was similar at both times for the unemployed, and for the employed at Time 1: the most popular attribution was internal unstable (effort), followed by external stable (situation), followed by external unstable (luck), and lastly internal stable (ability). By contrast, the employed at Time 2 showed a slightly different pattern, reversing the order of the last two and giving luck as the least frequent causal attribution. Attributions for bad outcomes and self-esteem. At Time 2, self-esteem scores in the unemployed were higher for those who made unstable attributions for bad outcomes (M = 7.96) than for those who made stable attributions (M = 7.12) F(1,134) = 7.68, P < 0.01. Separate analyses for each sex revealed that this relationship was much stronger in, and only significant for, the girls. For the unemployed girls, those who made unstable attributions for bad outcomes had higher self-esteem scores (M = 7.98) than those who made stable attributions (M = 6.62) F(1,66) = 4.24, P < 0.05. (Interestingly, this relationship was reversed when the unemployed youngsters were at school, with the self-esteem scores being higher for those who made stable attributions for bad outcomes (M = 7.73) than for those who made unstable attributions (M = 7.19) although this difference was
Attributional style
663
far from being statistically significant). There was no relationship between self-esteem and internality of attribution for bad outcomes in the unemployed. Attributions for bad outcomes and depressive a&t. In the unemployed at Time 2, depressive affect scores were lower for those making unstable attributions (M = 1.33) than for those making stable attributions (M = 1.95), F (1,134) = 8.89, P < 0.01. Analysis by sex showed that the difference was significant only for the boys. Those who made unstable attributions had lower scores (M = 1.26) than those who made stable attributions (M = 2.03), F(1,68) = 4.00, P < 0.05. (This relationship was not observed in the unemployed of either sex at Time 1.) In the employed at Time 2, as for the unemployed, depressive affect scores were lower for those who made unstable attributions (M = 0.79) than for those who made stable attributions (M = 1.OO), F (1,797) = 8.13, P < 0.01. (As with the unemployed, no such relationship was evident in the employed of either sex at Time 1.) Like the unemployed, the employed also exhibited no relationship between depressive affect and externality of causal attribution for bad outcome at either time.
Attributional
style as a predictor
of later dtflerences
In order to assess the predictive validity of attributional style, analyses of current self-esteem and depressive affect scores as a function of the earlier attributions for good and bad outcomes were carried out. Earlier attributions for good outcomes. Attributions for good outcomes at Time 1, were unrelated to self-esteem in the unemployed at Time 2, although they were weakly related to depressive affect in the boys. For the unemployed boys, depressive affect was higher for those who gave unstable attributions (M = 2.03) than for those who gave stable attributions (M = 1.15) F( 166) = 3.33, P < 0.10. (This difference would be statistically significant on a one-tailed test, which could be justified because the difference is in the directiotrpredicted by the theory.) Conversely, in the employed, attributions for good outcomes at Time 1 were related to self-esteem at Time 2, although not to depressive effect. Those who gave stable attributions at Time 1 had higher self-esteem scores at Time 2 (M = 8.95) than those who gave unstable attributions (M = 8.64) F (1,804) = 10.56, P < 0.001. When separate analyses were carried out on the boys and girls, only the girls showed the effect: those who gave stable attributions having higher self-esteem scores (M = 9.06) than those who gave unstable attributions (M = 8.53), F(1,421) = 11.24, P < 0.001. All of these differences were in the direction predicted by the theory. Earlier attributions for bad outcomes. As with attributions for good outcomes, attributions for bad outcomes at Time 1 were not related to self-esteem at Time 2 in the unemployed, although they were related to depressive affect in the girls but not the boys. The unemployed girls who had given external attributions for bad outcomes at Time 1 had lower depressive affect scores at Time 2 (M = 1.25) than those who had given internal attributions (M = 2.00), F(1,64) = 8.24, P < 0.01. In the employed, attributions for bad outcomes were not related either to self-esteem or to depressive affect.
Is attributional
style a stable characteristic?
In order to assess the stability of attributional style, a comparison was made of the attributions for good and bad outcomes made before and after leaving school for the employed and unemployed groups. The following four questions were asked with respect to each type of outcome: (1) What proportion of people made the same attribution at the different times? (2) Did the proportion differ between employed and unemployed groups? (3) Of those who changed, was there a tendency to change in some directions rather than others? (4) Was the type of change related to employment status? In fact there were no statistically significant associations between the proportion giving different causal attributions and either employment status or sex. Consequently the percentages reported below relate to the overall sample. In the case of good outcomes, 51% of the people gave the same attributions on each occasion as opposed to 49% who gave different attributions. In the case of bad outcomes, 50% of people gave the same attributions on each occasion and 50% gave different attributions.
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ANTHONY
H.
WINEFIELD
et al.
Looking at the nature of the changed attributions for good outcomes, overall 36% changed along the stability dimension. Of those who changed 51% went from stable to unstable and 49% went from unstable to stable. In the case of the internality dimension, 33% changed. Of these, 66% went from external to internal attributions. Turning to changes in attributions for bad outcomes, 37% changed their attributions in terms of the stability dimension of whom 52% went from unstable to stable. In the case of the internality to internal dimension, 38% changed their attributions. Of these, 55% went from external attributions. DISCUSSION
Overall our results provide only limited support for the attributional reformulation of the theory of learned helplessness. Specific attributions for unemployment were certainly not related to self-esteem or depressive affect in the manner proposed by the theory. In fact, the only statistically significant effect, viz. higher self-esteem in unemployed girls making internal attributions, was in the opposite direction to that predicted by the theory. So far as attributional style is concerned, the kinds of causal attributions made for bad outcomes (in general) proved to be better predictors than attributions made for good outcomes (in general) for the unemployed, whereas the reverse was true for the employed. Moreover, in all cases the observed relations were in accordance with the theory. So far as ongoing attributional measures were concerned, the employed who made internal attributions for good outcomes displayed both higher self-esteem and lower depressive affect than those giving external attributions. Similarly, in the unemployed, the girls giving unstable attributions for bad outcomes, were higher in self-esteem than those giving stable attributions for bad outcomes, and the boys giving unstable attributions were lower in depressive affect than those giving stable attributions. The employed girls who gave unstable attributions for bad outcomes were also lower in depressive affect than those giving stable attributions. In the case of causal attributions for good and bad outcomes given earlier, and current measures of self-esteem and depressive affect, there was a similar difference between the employed and unemployed. For the unemployed girls an earlier tendency to attribute bad outcomes to external causes was associated with lower depressive affect. In the employed boys, an earlier tendency to attribute good outcomes to internal causes was associated with higher self-esteem, and in the employed girls, an earlier tendency to attribute good outcomes to stable causes was also associated with higher self-esteem. There was no relation between earlier causal attributions for good outcomes and current measures of self-esteem and depressive affect in the unemployed, neither was there any relation between earlier causal attributions for bad outcomes and current measures of self-esteem and depressive affect in the employed. Many of the differences predicted by the attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory were not apparent in our data when we related earlier attributions to later measures of self-esteem and depressive affect. On the other hand. it should be pointed out that all of the observed differences were in line with the theory. Some of the observed sex differences are worthy of comment, specifically those for which a significant effect was observed in one sex, but where no difference (or a slight difference in the opposite direction) was apparent in the other sex. In three cases, the sex differences involved only one sex exhibiting the predicted relationship between earlier attributions and ongoing measures of self-esteem or depressive affect. Thus, the employed girls who had earlier given stable attributions for good outcomes showed higher subsequent self-esteem than those who had given unstable attributions. Also, the unemployed boys who had earlier given stable attributions for good outcomes were subsequently less depressed than those who had given unstable attributions. Finally, the unemployed girls who had earlier given external attributions for bad outcomes were subsequently less depressed than those who had given internal attributions. The only finding that is somewhat surprising concerns the self-esteem difference in the unemployed girls between those attributing their unemployment to internal, as opposed to external, causes. According to learned helplessness theory, those attributing their unemployment to internal causes should have exhibited lower self-esteem, yet the reverse was true. In fact, the unemployed
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665
girls differed initially from the other three subgroups in both self-esteem and depressive affect. They were the lowest in self-esteem and the highest in depressive affect initially, and, unlike the unemployed boys, actually showed a slight improvement on both measures, rather than a deterioration. These differences could not be explained in terms of differences in the subjective importance of employment (either to themselves or to their parents), neither could they be explained in terms of different expectations about the likelihood of finding employment. The remaining tenable explanation seems to be that, for whatever reason, girls in State high schools display lower self-esteem and higher depressive affect than boys. These differences have largely disappeared three years after leaving school. The fact that around half the respondents gave different attributions (for both good and bad outcomes) at the different times suggests that attributional style can scarcely be regarded as a particularly stable personality characteristic in adolescents. Whether it is more stable over a period of years in more mature subjects remains to be seen. It should be acknowledge that our measures of attributional style may have been unreliable and this could explain the fact that so many of our subjects changed their attributions between the earlier and later times. We did not use the Attributional Style Questionnaire developed by Peterson, Semmel, von Baeyer, Abramson, Metalsky and Seligman (1982) for two cogent reasons. First, it had not been published when we began our study in 1980. Second, it would, in any case, have been far too long to include in a questionnaire which had to be completed within a school lesson period of 40 minutes. Overall, our results do not encourage us to dispute the recent conclusion of Brewin (1985) and Coyne and Gotlib (1983) that the reformulated learned helplessness theory has so far received only weak empirical support as a model of depression. On the other hand, the differences that we found between our employed and unemployed groups as well as the recent findings reported by Baum, Fleming, and Reddy (1986) suggest that unemployment may well be a naturally occurring natural stressor that provides the opportunity for further useful tests of the theory. REFERENCES Abramson L., Seligman M. E. P. and Teasdale J. D. (1978) Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. J. abnorm. Psychol. 87, 49-74. Baum A. Fleming R. and Reddy D. M. (1986) Unemployment stress: Loss of control, reactance and learned helplessness. Sot. Sci. Med. 22, 509-516. Brewin C. R. (1985) Depression and causal attributions: What is their relation? Psychol. Bull. 98, 297-309. Coyne J. C. and Gotlib I. H. (1983) The role of cognition in depression: A critical appraisal. Psycho/. Bull. 94, 472-505. Peterson C. and Seligman M. E. P. (1984) Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence. Psychol. Rev. 91, 347-374. Peterson C., Semmel A., von Baeyer C., Abramson L Y., Metalsky G. I. and Seligman M. E. P. (1982) The attributional style questionnaire. Cognif Ther. Res. 6, 287-300. Rosenberg M. (1965) Sociefy and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton University Press. Seligman M. E. P. (1975) Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death. Freeman, San Francisco.