Depressive reactions and unemployment.

Abstract

This study investigated correlates of situation-specific depressive affect associated with unemployment arid correlates of more general depressive symptoms assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for a sample of 116 young unemployed male and female subjects. Consistent with a frustrated work-motivation pattern, depressive affect was associated with concern about being unemployed (employment importance) and with stronger endorsement of external causes of unemployment. Consistent with a selftblame view of depression, BDI scores were related to stronger endorsement of internal causes for unemployment, to low selfesteem, and to feelings of helplessness (indicated by judgments that the major cause of personal unemployment was uncontrollable). Stronger endorsement of internal causes was found among those subjects with a longer history of unemployment. Multiple regression analyses showed, however, that the attributional variables accounted for a relatively low proportion of the variance in the depression measures. These results suggest that there are different correlates for situation-specific depressive affect about unemployment and BDI depression. They also question the adequacy of attributional accounts of depression.

Poverty in developing nations: a cross-cultural attributional analysis

“…Most of these studies report results consistent with the actor±observer eect (Jones & Nisbett, 1972): economically disadvantaged groups tend to attribute their poverty to external factors like the economy, the political climate, or discrimination, whereas advantaged groups are more apt to blame poverty on internal factorsÐ usually characterological weaknesses of the poor (Guimond & Dube, 1989). Similar results have been found in studies comparing the explanations for unemployment oered by the employed (or student observers) and the unemployed (Feather & Barber, 1983;Gurney, 1981).…”

“…Several studies of domestic poverty have compared the poverty attributions made by members of economically advantaged and disadvantaged groups (e.g. Feather & Barber, 1983;Furnham 1982a;Guimond & Dube, 1989;Gurney, 1981), providing a useful theoretical basis for generating hypotheses in the current study. Most of these studies report results consistent with the actor±observer eect (Jones & Nisbett, 1972): economically disadvantaged groups tend to attribute their poverty to external factors like the economy, the political climate, or discrimination, whereas advantaged groups are more apt to blame poverty on internal factorsÐ usually characterological weaknesses of the poor (Guimond & Dube, 1989).…”

Reduction of sucrose preference by chronic unpredictable mild stress, and its restoration by a tricyclic antidepressant

“…Evidence is accumulating that chronic low grade stress (" strain") may be an important factor in the etiology of depression (Brown and Offprint requests to ." P. Willner Harris 1978 ;Jahoda 1979;Kanner et al 1981 ;Aneshensel and Stone 1982;Billings et al 1983;Feather and Barber 1983), and a specific relationship to endogenous depression has been postulated (Willner 1985(Willner , 1987.…”

Causal Attributions, Perceived Consequences of Unemployment, and Perceptions of Employment Prospects Among Adolescents in New Zealand

“…Feather and Davenport (1981) found that the more motivated and more depressed unemployed youths tended to attribute unemployment to external factors. Two other Australian studies found that adolescents who were still at school were more external in their unemployment attributions than unemployed young people (Feather, 1983;Feather & Barber, 1983). Feather (1983) suggested that this finding illustrates possible "observer" effects referred to in Jones and Nisbett's (1972) analysis of attributional processes.…”