Dysphoria and the failure to perceive and use discounting information: implications for internalizing negative...

The present study examined the proposition that dysphoric individuals make internal attributions because they do not use available discounting cues. To test this hypothesis, 23 dysphoric and 32 nondysphoric college students were either provided a discounting cue or were led to believe that an internal attribution for failure was appropriate (no discounting cue). On the primary measure of internality, nondysphoric individuals made greater external attributions when a discounting cue was available than they did when no such cue was present, but attributions made by dysphoric individuals were unaffected by the presence of a discounting cue. On the other hand, using a secondary dependent measure inserted to replicate a prior study in this area, key comparison differences were not obtained.