Attributional ruletrees are shallow decision-tree-like structures whose leaves are sets of attributional rules or groups of classes. By using attributional ruletrees one is able in some cases to improve computational efficiency of inductive learning and understandability of generated hypotheses. A comparison of results of creating attributional ruletrees, attributional rules, and decision trees...

The purpose of this study was to provide an experimental test of the theory of change put forth by A. T. Beck, A. J. Rush, B. F. Shaw, and G. Emery (1979) to explain the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CT) for depression. The comparison involved randomly assigning 150 outpatients with major depression to a treatment focused exclusively on the behavioral activation (BA) component of CT...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the study was to investigate the extent and nature of spontaneous attributional activity elicited by a newspaper report of child sexual abuse. METHOD One hundred and seventy-six respondents, who were recruited through appeals placed in the letters column of a local newspaper, were presented with a newspaper report that described either a stereotype-congruent (rape by ...

BACKGROUND Maladaptive cognitive biases such as negative attributional style and hopelessness have been implicated in the development and maintenance of depression. According to the hopelessness theory of depression, hopelessness mediates the association between attributional style and depression. The aetiological processes underpinning this influential theory remain unknown. The current study ...

Hostile attributions were examined in 150 incarcerated males to test the possibility that there are two pathways associated with hostile attributions: one related to psychopathy as assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised [PCL-R; Hare, 1991] and one related to depressogenic attributional style, as assessed using the Inferential Styles Questionnaire [ISQ; Rose et al., 1994]. Ten hypothet...