Litigios entre las familias de los lactantes y las nodrizas

Attributional Style, in Particular Pessimism, is Related to Depression Change Over Time

Both optimism and pessimism correlated significantly with depression. Higher BDI-II scores at intake were correlated with higher levels of pessimism at intake and over the course of therapy. BDI-II scores at intake did not correlate with optimism. Therefore clients‘ initial levels of pessimism may be the most important aspect of attributional style to consider when initially planning therapy and predicting future

99 depression change over time. However, BDI-II change over time was correlated with both optimism and pessimism scores both at intake and over time, demonstrating that both styles are important considerations over the course of therapy. Numerous studies have reported finding that attributional style and depressive symptoms are correlated (for example, Golin et al., 1981) and that change in attributional style is correlated with change in depressive symptoms (e.g. Barber & DeRubeis, 2001, DeRubeis et al., 1990, Carver et al., 2002, Seligman et al., 1988, & Teasdale et al., 2001), therefore these findings were not unexpected. The stronger relationship between pessimism and BDI-II scores than optimism and BDI-II was also in line with previous research (e.g. Seligman et al., 1988). A report by Carr and McNulty (2006) lists a pessimistic cognitive style as a particular risk factor for depression.

Multilevel analyses demonstrated that of the two facets of attributional style, pessimism explained the most variance in depression scores. The relationship between optimism and depression at intake remained, but over time became non-significant in the context of multilevel analysis. Investigating the nature of attributional style in relation to depression using multilevel analysis is a new development in the literature. Although there has recently been research using multilevel analysis when investigating the nature of attributional style, the amount is small and the studies are not relevant to this topic. For example, Abela, McGirr, and Skitch (2007) employed multilevel analysis in the investigation of the hopelessness theory but in relation to the diathesis-stress hypothesis and with youth. Very recent research that has investigated attributional style in relation to depression in adults has still often relied on using multiple individual regression analyses (e.g. Ball, McGuffin, & Farmer, 2008). Therefore there is very little if not no research re-investigating the attributional style relationship with clinical depression in adults using multilevel analysis.

Thus it can be concluded that pessimism experiences a stronger association with depression changes. The relationship with pessimism and BDI-II scores over time demonstrates the importance of measuring change over time and employing analytical techniques that capture these differences. From these findings, it can be stated that people who are more pessimistic will generally be more depressed at intake, and will experience a slower decline in depression levels over time. However, it is also likely that pessimism levels themselves decrease throughout the course of therapy, providing strong motivation for targeting negative attributions in CBT for depression. Optimism does not appear to be as important in terms of influencing

100 changes in depression severity. While this could be due to the CoPos (optimism) construct being less reliable, it could also be that attributing positive events to internal, stable, and global causes is less important than refraining from attributing negative events to internal, stable, and global causes.

Attributional Style is Time - Variant

Both pessimism and optimism scores varied over the course of therapy. On average, pessimism scores for clients showed a downward / decreasing trend, while optimism scores showed an upward / increasing trend from intake to therapy termination. However, for both pessimism and optimism, there were a small number of exceptions for individual clients where scores went in the opposite direction to what was expected. Although the ASQ measures a style of thinking and may therefore have originally been conceptualised as stable, the time variant nature of attributional style has been suggested and subsequently demonstrated by others (e.g. Carver et al., 2002, & DeRubeis et al., 1990) and was therefore not unexpected. This provided important evidence that the changing relationship of attributional style with homework and depression over time was a valuable pursuit.

Attributional Style Change is Maintained at Follow-up

Both optimism and pessimism improvements from intake to therapy termination were maintained at the two-month follow-up for a large proportion of clients. However, pessimism was the focus of this study as it yielded more significant correlations and higher reliability. Of those who returned for follow-up sessions, 79% experienced sustained lower pessimism scores than at intake. Attributional style has been investigated in relation to sustained benefits in several studies. For example, Seligman et al. (1988) showed that pessimistic attributional styles increased slightly a year following termination, but remained lower than when they initially entered therapy. Optimism scores showed a similar pattern, decreasing slightly at one-year follow-up compared with termination, but remaining higher than at intake (Seligman et al., 1988). Thus these findings in conjunction with the current study‘s reports suggest that cognitive change experienced during therapy can be sustained through lengthy follow-up periods, indicating lasting change worthy of sound investment during the course of therapy.

3. The Moderating Effect of Pessimism on the Homework - Depression