Explanatory style

[4] The concept of explanatory style encompasses a wide range of possible responses to both positive and negative occurrences, rather than a black-white difference between optimism and pessimism.

Also, an individual does not necessarily show a uniform explanatory style in all aspects of life, but may exhibit varying responses to different types of events.

[5] The "learned helplessness" model formed the theoretical basis of the original Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale statement on attributional style.

Hopelessness theory also highlights perceived importance and consequences of a negative outcome in addition to causal attributions as factors in clinical depression.

Cutrona, Russell and Jones, for example, found evidence for considerable cross-situational variation and temporal change of attributional style in women suffering from post-partum depression.

[14] Xenikou notes, however, that Cutrona, Russell and Jones found more evidence for the cross-situational consistency of stability and globalism than of internalization.

[16] Using a technique called Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanation (CAVE),[17] these authors found stable patterns of attributional style over a long time period.

Optimistic and Pessimistic attributions emerged as independent of each other, supporting models in which these styles have distinct genetic and environmental origins.