Depression and Attributional Complexity

Abstract

Recent research suggests that mildly and moderately depressed individuals are more sensitive to social information than the non depressed individuals are. The relationship between severity of depression and a measure relevant to this social sensitivity, attributional complexity, was examined. As predicted, a significant quadratic contrast indicated an inverted-U-shaped relationship between depression and attributional complexity. Mildly depressed individuals had the highest attributional complexity scores; nondepressed and severely depressed individuals had the lowest scores. Sex differences for both depression and attributional complexity were replicated. More women than men were depressed, and women also had higher attributional complexity scores. Finally, the relationship between attributional complexity and depression was interpreted as reflecting depressives' responses to heightened contingency uncertainty and expectations of uncontrollability.