Explanatory Style, Explanatory Flexibility and Explanatory Diversity as Moderators between Stress and Depression

OBJECTIVE: According to the hopelessness theory, explanatory style is a cognitive vulnerability in the diathesis-stress model of depression. Findings validate the moderating role of explanatory style in the relations between stress and depression. Recently, researchers propose the construct of explanatory flexibility－the variations of one’s explanations to different situations, and findings indicate that explanatory flexibility interacts with life stress to predict depressive symptoms. The above research findings suggest, in addition to the content of one’s explanations to negative events, the explanatory flexibility is also a possible cognitive vulnerability factor. However, no past study has examined the role of individual differences in variations among several explanations one attribute to the same event (we named it explanatory diversity) in the relation with stress and depression. Therefore, the current study not only tried to replicate the moderating roles of explanatory style and explanatory flexibility on the relationship between life stress and depression, but also to assess whether explanatory diversity has moderating effect on the relationship of stress and depression. What’s more, past studies on variations of explanation have never used real life stressful events as the target events of attribution, so the current study included both hypothetical and real life stressful events to explore the role of the above-mentioned three explanatory variables in the model of diathesis-stress model. METHOD: We recruited 146 undergraduate students to carry out two time-points measurements with about two-week interval. At time 1, we asked participants to complete “the Explanatory Style, Flexibility, and Diversity Scale”, “Life Stress Scale (LSS)”, and “Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, BDI-II”. At time 2, participants completed the LSS and BDI-II again. We used hierarchical regression analyses to explore the interaction effect between the three explanatory variables and life stress on depressive symptoms, after controlling baseline life stress and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: The findings include: (1) Explanatory style for hypothetical stressful life events could significantly predict depressive symptoms two weeks later, but couldn’t moderate the relationship between stress and depression. Explanatory style for real stressful life events couldn’t predict depressive symptoms, nor did it moderate the relationship between stress and depression. (2) Explanatory flexibility for both hypothetical and real stressful life events had a moderating effect on life stress and depressive symptoms. Relative to individuals with low explanatory flexibility, those with high explanatory flexibility displayed stronger positive association between life stress and depressive symptoms. (3) Explanatory diversity for hypothetical stressful life events interacts with life stress to predict depressive symptoms. Among those with low explanatory diversity, their life stress did not correlate with depressive symptoms, but for individuals with high explanatory diversity, life stress correlated with depressive symptoms significantly. However, explanatory diversity for real stressful life events could not predict depressive symptoms or moderate the relationship between stress and depression. DISSCUTION: The current study attempts to explain the above findings by discussing the construct of attributional complexity and causal uncertainty, and measurements limitations. Possible applications, clinical implications, and future directions are further discussed.