A cognitive style that may be depressive or not and which refers to the interpretation of events (i.e., in a task testing for attributional style, subjects are asked to give reasons why a hypothetical event might have occurred). Such causal attributions may be depressive and pessimistic [global, stable and internal (e.g., “the reason I failed my test is because I’m a stupid person”)] or non-depressive and optimistic [specific, unstable and external (e.g., “the reason I failed my test is because at the time I was taking the test, there was a lot of noise outside and I could not focus”)].
See Avoidance learning, Learned helplessness