Talk:Explanatory style

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Credible Source for CAVE[edit]

I was trying to figure out who marked the CAVE home page as a potentially unreliable source and why... it's maintained by the University of Pennsylvania... though it hasn't been updated since 1996 and looks weird today because it still looks like web sites looked in '96 (i.e. not very "professional" looking). But since I couldn't figure out why it was marked that way and assumed it was probably because of the unusual appearance of the page, I instead added another reference to a more modern-looking u-penn page with out-takes from several publications that mention CAVE. ike (talk) 01:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pessimistic and optimistic explanitory styles[edit]

At least according to this article, when a person feels that a negative event is thier own fault, they tend to believe that such problems will continue indefinitely, where if they hold others responsible for their problems, they tend to believe that such events will end quickly. It seems, however, that if one believed that they were the source of their problems, that they would also be inclined to believe that they themselves could stop the problem. Conversely, if one felt that there problems were the result of another's actions toward them, that they would therefore believe that the problem was beyond thier control, and as a result, be more inclined to believe that such negative events would continue to occur no matter what they do.66.24.236.62 05:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The way I understand it, this is true *if* the Personal explanatory style (one's own fault or others) is couple with the other two being positive - in other words, the bad thing will not last/is not permanent and the extent is not pervasive.

However, even if one feels that a certain thing is one's responsibility (always missing that turn) is is still pessimistic if that person believe the situation is permanent (they will *always* miss that turn) and pervasive (they cause many more mistakes, too.) If that is the case, then even if the person believes they have control in that it was their fault, they will still be pessimistic because they will feel there is nothing they can do to change.

So, in essence, even if #1 is something one can control, the negative outlook of #2 and #3 (possibly just one of them) will negate #1.108.87.73.243 (talk) 11:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

list of components[edit]

i would suggest to replace the current list of components:

internality (whether the event is the person's responsibility or someone else's)
stability (whether the event will continue indefinitely or end soon)
globality (whether the event will affect every aspect of a person's life or only a few)

with the one found in Learned_helplessness, which seems a lot easier to understand:

Personal - They may see themselves as the problem; that is, they have internalized the problem.
Pervasive - They may see the problem affecting all aspects of life.
Permanent - They may see the problem as unchangeable.

Pessimistic == personal and negative? Since when?[edit]

Does any of the research work ever state that a pessimistic outlook is strongly correlated with "personal" and "negative" explanatory styles? Because I know plenty of very pessimistic people who tend to blame the external world for all their problems. In fact, it can be argued that the pessimist thinks the world itself is wrong, and therefore outside his control. Since my opinion is POV, I'll refrain from changing the article. But that assertion definitely needs referencing. 200.32.121.66 (talk) 17:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the article about Pessimism#Psychology contradicts the characterization in this article: "The study of pessimism has parallels with the study of depression. Psychologists trace pessimistic attitudes to emotional pain or even biology. Aaron Beck argues that depression is due to unrealistic negative views about the world." 200.32.121.66 (talk) 18:05, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It might be worth comparing locus of control theory with attributional style. The locus of control theory, which simply rated people along a dimension of whether they saw themselves as being in control of events (internal) or seeing external factors as being the control of events in their lives, tended to view anxiety as correlated with an internal locus of control. However, attributional style tended to view an internal, stable and global attributional style as being linked with vulnerability to depression. Since attributional style theory adds two extra dimensions of attribution to internality-externality - stability-unstability and globality-specificity this might explain why they may lack hope, even if they are internals (e.g. they may have a stable attribution for negative events). Vorbee (talk) 17:02, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Attributional style[edit]

 The first sentence of this article says that attributional (or explanatory) style is used to explain how individuals explain events, either positive or negative  - but surely, one's attributional style may explain how people explain neutral events. Vorbee (talk) 16:53, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]