Explanatory style

Explanatory style is a psychological attribute that indicates how people explain to themselves why they experience a particular event, either positive or negative.

This aspect covers the degree to which a person attributes an event to themselves or to internal causes. An optimist might attribute a bad experience to luck whereas a pessimist might consider it his or her fault. Another person might also attribute an event to external forces in an unhealthy way (e.g. "I had no choice but to get violent.")

This aspect covers characteristics considered stable versus unstable. An optimist would tend to define his or her good qualities as stable ("I never forget a face") whereas a pessimist might think, for example, "I will never feel happy."

This distinction covers global versus local and/or specific and the extent of the effect. A pessimist might, for example, think that "Everywhere there is misery" and an optimist think that, "I have had dealings mostly with honest people".

People who generally tend to blame themselves for negative events, believe that such events will continue indefinitely, and let such events affect many aspects of their lives display what is called a pessimistic explanatory style. Conversely, people who generally tend to blame outside forces for negative events, believe that such events will end soon, and do not let such events affect too many aspects of their lives display what is called an optimistic explanatory style.

Some research has suggested a pessimistic explanatory style may be correlated with depression and physical illness. The concept of explanatory style encompasses a wide range of possible responses to both positive and negative occurrences, rather than a black-white difference between optimism and pessimism. Also, an individual does not necessarily show a uniform explanatory style in all aspects of life, but may exhibit varying responses to different types of events.

Attributional style emerged from research on depression, with Abramson et al. arguing that a characteristic way of attributing negative outcomes – to internal, stable and global causes – would be associated with depression in response to negative events happened to them. As a diathesis–stress model of depression, the model does not predict associations of attributional style with depression in the absence of objective negative events (stressors). A meta-analysis of 104 empirical studies of the theory indicates that the predictions are supported. Data have, however, been ambiguous, and some researchers believe that the theory is well-supported, some believe that it has not had impressive empirical support and some believe that, at least in the early days of the theory, the theory was never adequately tested. One factor accounting for ambiguity in research into the model is whether researchers have assessed attributions for hypothetical events or for real events. Interestingly, those studies that have looked at attributions for hypothetical events have been more supportive of the model, possibly because these studies are more likely to have controlled for event severity.

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