We also can vary in terms of whether that attribution is global or specific.
So we might say well, I'm really not good at that subject or
I had a bad day on that particular day.
What happened on that test is something that really doesn't have to do with me as
a person, it just had to do with a very narrow specific event.
That would be adaptive.
But in the face of a negative event, a negative stressor,
saying that had to do with you in a global fashion,
it means that you are globally stupid, or bad at test taking, or not good at school.
That would be something that is
more detrimental to engage in that type of attribution.
And finally, many of us might experience a negative stressor and say well you know,
I had a bad day or that's something
I might not be doing well this particular semester or this particular week.
But some of us might say after a negative event that characterizes how we are over
a long period of time, so it's a stable type of attribution.
Well, all of us sometimes experience a negative stressor and
we make internal global stable attributions, and that's okay.
That happens to all of us every once in awhile.
But what Lauren Alloy and Lyn Abramson found was that there are some people that
most of the time seem to make internal global stable attributions for
negative events.
In addition, they seem to make external, specific,
and unstable attributions for positive events.
So in other words, if they get an A on a test or if they are asked out by someone
they're attracted to, they might say well this is probably an accident.
it probably had nothing to do with me, they must have been drunk or something.
I am sure that wouldn't ever happen to me again, and
it was probably only because I was wearing the particular clothes on that day.
I'm not really someone that gets that kind of attention.
