A cognitive personality variable reflecting how individuals habitually explain the causes of life events. This construct represents a spectrum of optimism and pessimism in attributional tendencies. For instance, an optimistic attribution for a positive outcome might be internal (“I am talented”), stable (“I will always be good at this”), and global (“I’m good at everything I try”). Conversely, a pessimistic attribution for a negative outcome might follow the same pattern: internal (“I am incompetent”), stable (“I will always fail”), and global (“I fail at everything”).
This attributional pattern is significantly associated with various life outcomes, including physical health, mental well-being, achievement, and resilience. Its development is influenced by early childhood experiences and learned patterns of thinking. Understanding this style allows for the identification of individuals at risk for negative outcomes and the development of interventions to promote more adaptive attributional patterns.
