Affectivity and psychological adjustment across two adult generations: Does pessimistic explanatory style still matter?

Abstract

Past research and theory have pointed to the role of pessimistic explanatory style as a predictor of psychological adjustment in adults. This study examined the extent to which, beyond affectivity, pessimistic explanatory style uniquely predicted depressive symptoms and life satisfaction in and across two adult generations, namely, among young adults and their middle-aged parents. For both adult groups, results of conducting hierarchical regression analyses indicated that pessimistic explanatory style did not add uniquely to the prediction of either dependent variable. These findings are taken to suggest that pessimistic explanatory style may play a more limited role in predicting psychological adjustment in adults than previously thought when other important predictors are taken into account.