Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1989

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Robert G. Wahler

Committee Members

John Lounsbury, Anne McIntyre, Greg Pettit

Abstract

Children's self-report of depression was investigated as related to children's self-reported attributional style and observed maternal aversive behavior within an unpredictable environment. It was presumed that a high degree of environmental unpredictability existed in the sample, as many of the families were classified as socially disadvantaged, insular, and/or multistressed. Additionally, maternal unpredictable behavior was observed, measured, and statistically controlled in the data analysis. The proposed hypothesis that aversiveness of parenting would be inversely related to children's depressogenic attributional style and depression was not confirmed. Rather, a trend for maternal aversiveness and depressogenic attributional style to be positively correlated was found. A t test comparison between high unpredictable/high aversive and high unpredictable/low aversive families also determined that high caretaker aversiveness was significantly associated with higher incidences of children's depressogenic attributional style. Additional analyses were done with the sample split based on socioeconomic disadvantage level. Within the families classified as highly socioeconomically disadvantaged, there was weak support for the proposed hypothesis, as a trend VI approaching significance was found for aversive maternal behavior to be negatively correlated with children's depression. This relationship was not found within the low socioeconomically disadvantaged families. Aversiveness of mothering was also determined to be positively correlated with socioeconoinic disadvantage and unpredictability. It was suggested that the results could be understood through Wahler and Dumas's (1986) predictability hypothesis. In a regression analysis, none of the factors of maternal unpredictability, maternal aversiveness, or children's attributional style were found to be significant predictors of children's depression, nor was attributional style found to function as a mediating or a moderating factor between maternal aversiveness and children's depression. Limitations of the current research were discussed in suggesting future directions for the investigation of the interaction between attributional style and environmental factors in predicting depression. It was recommended that future research devote particular attention to the measurement of the child's perceived and actual ability to control events in his or her environment.

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