Poverty and pessimism: relations of attributional style to childhood socioeconomic status, adverse experience and mental health

Abstract

Low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher rates of psychopathology in childhood and beyond. This study assessed one possible contributor to this disparity, the attributional style of pessimism, in a group of 341 9-year-olds (49% female, 94% White) ranging widely in SES. Pessimism is the tendency to expect negative events to be persistent (Stable) and pervasive (Global). It was found to be more common among lower SES children (effect sizes = 0.18-0.24 depending on SES measures). Moreover, persistent, pervasive adversity in children’s lives predicted a pessimistic attributional style and mediated the SES - pessimism link. Pessimistic attributional style, in turn, was related to childhood behavioral and psychological problems and mediated the relation between SES and these problems.