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The 3Ps of Pessimistic Explanatory Style in Depression


When faced with an adversity, people with depression default to a pessimistic explanatory style (Sweeney et al., 1986). This rigid style has three facets, also called the 3Ps (Reivich & Shatté, 2002; Seligman, 2006):

1. “Personal” thinking wherein a person finds a cause within themselves to explain an adverse situation. For example, if your boss didn’t respond back to your “Hi,” you assume that they are not happy with you.

2. “Permanent” thinking wherein a person facing a bad outcome believes that the situation is a never ending ordeal rather than temporary. For example, you have a disagreement with your coworker and your knee jerk reaction is, “She is always doing this to me.”

3. “Pervasive” thinking in which a person thinks that a particular problem will affect many areas of their life rather than having a circumscribed effect. For instance, you fail to meet a deadline at work and feel that you have never been an organized person your entire life.

People with pessimistic explanatory styles, when faced with a failure, tend to slip into a state of learned helplessness, which is a harbinger of depression (Seligman, 2006). Learned helplessness is the state of mind when an individual expects that they have no response in their repertoire to change the likelihood of an adverse outcome. A person with depression attributes a sense of personal helplessness to a failure (e.g., I am stupid versus the exam was tough). Research has supported the association of pessimistic explanatory style with depression and also change in explanatory style leading to improvement in depressive symptoms (Raps et al., 1982; Seligman et al., 1988). Learning to recognize your pessimistic explanatory style helps you “think outside the box” for alternative explanations for adversities and avoiding learned helplessness. It provides you with a more accurate view of the situation and helps you problem-solve more creatively rather than being stuck in a negative explanatory loop.

As an exercise to help you change your explanatory style, identify three recent adverse situations related to different spheres of your life (work, relationships, personal life, etc.) and try to ascertain if your explanatory style consists of one or more of the 3 Ps of the pessimistic explanatory style. If you discover that your explanatory style is mostly pessimistic, then for future stressful situations, complete these three statements to help you shake off this unhelpful explanatory style (Reivich & Shatté, 2002):

1. “A more accurate way of seeing this is …”
2. “That’s not true because …”
3. “A more likely outcome is … and I can (what you can do) to deal with it.”

To learn more about evidence-based self-management techniques that are proven to work for depression, check out Dr. Duggal's Author Page. 

HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA

REFERENCES

Raps, C. S., Peterson, C., Reinhard, K. E., Abramson, L. Y., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1982). 
Attributional style among depressed patients. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 91, 102-108. 

Reivich, K., & Shatté, A. (2002). The resilience factor. New York, NY: Broadway Books. 

Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned optimism. New York, NY: Vintage Books. 

Seligman, M. E. P., Castellon, C., Cacciola, J., Schulman, P., Luborsky, L., Ollove, M., & Downing, R. (1988). Explanatory style change during cognitive therapy for unipolar depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97(1), 13-18. 

Sweeney, P. D., Anderson, K., & Bailey, S. (1986). Attributional style in depression: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(5), 974-991.







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