The Reformulated theory of learned helplessness emphasizes maladaptive explanatory style and its influence on depression, achievement, health, and coping. Individuals who habitually explain unpleasant/uncontrollable events by internal, stable and global causes (and good events by external, unstable, specific causes) are said to have a maladaptive explanatory style. Researchers speculate that negative life events (such as parental divorce or death) contribute to the development of this style. Researchers have sought to explain adjustment-related difficulties by focusing on traumatic life events, such as divorce or death of a parent and their adverse effects on childhood development.Literature concerning the correlates of father absence, divorce, parental death, attachment and stressful life events shows that closeness to parents can mediate the impact of these events on adjustment and development. The mediating effects of closeness to parent may explain why not all children who experience these events actually develop maladaptive explanatory styles.This investigation examined the relations between Negative Life Events, Closeness to Parent and Explanatory Style. By looking at these relations, we can determine which variable is more influential in developing the maladaptive style. It was expected that Closeness to Parent would be a better predictor of explanatory style than Negative Life Events.Participants were 86 college students who completed a questionnaire that assessed explanatory style, closeness to parent, negative life events, and level of depression. Multiple regression was used to determine the significant predictors of explanatory style and depression. Results showed that none of the variables were significant predictors of explanatory style. Recent life events, closeness to mother and explanatory style were significant predictors of depression. Discriminant analysis was used to determine whether participants whose parents were divorced could be differentiated from those whose parent's marriage was intact using explanatory style, closeness to parent and depression as predictors. Results showed no significant differences between these groups. Sample group means for depression and life events were higher than those from normative studies for the Beck Depression Inventory and the Life Experience Survey.As the literature showed, closeness to parent and negative life events should account for some of the variance in the maladaptive style. The absence of these relations may be attributed to theoretical and methodological issues concerning closeness to parent and explanatory style.However, since this sample had high levels of depression and life stress, theoretically these relations should have been found. This points to the importance of the problems discussed.Prospective longitudinal studies, although costly and time consuming may be useful in determining the antecedents of a maladaptive explanatory style. / Department of Psychological Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/183531 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Sites, Teresa L. |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of Psychological Science., Stevenson, Michael R. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | vi, 72 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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