Gender and mood as mediators of the relationship between attributional style,daily life events,depression symptoms,and hopelessness

A study was conducted to investigate whether or not the relationship between attributional style, daily life events or hassles, and hopelessness depression is mediated by gender and mood at the time when attributional style is assessed. Measures of attributional style, hassles, depression, and hopelessness were administered, in a prospective design, to 100 undergraduate students on two occasions separated by 1 month. Results showed that the interaction of attributional style, hassles, and gender predicted change in hopelessness levels (p <.05) and that this interaction demonstrated a nonsignificant trend toward predicting change in depression symptom levels (p =.07). The interaction of attributional style, hassles, and time 1 depression scores also demonstrated a nonsignificant trend toward predicting change in depression symptom levels (p =.08), but did not predict change in hopelessness levels. The interaction of attributional style and hassles did not, by itself, predict change in either depression or hopelessness levels. These findings suggest that research investigating relationships between causal attributions for negative life events and depression should consider the potential influences of gender and of mood at the time when causal attributions are assessed.This research was funded in part by a Gettysburg College Institutional Renewal Grant. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Dr. Constance Hammen and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments regarding earlier versions of this article.