The importance of “importance”: a longitudinal confirmation of the attributional-stress model of depression measuring the importance of the attributions and the impact of the stressor

In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the interaction between a negative attributional style for achievement-related events and a related stressor (i.e. failing a mid-term exam) predicted depression only in a small subset of the cognitive vulnerable subjects from the total sample (n=241). In line with the theoretical proposals of the hopelessness theory, the highest depression scores were observed in those subjects who not only had a negative attributional style for hypothetical achievement-related events, but had also judged such events as personally important, failed a mid-term exam, and judged that failing the exam was of major importance. Following on from these findings, we discuss the necessity of more adequate tests of diathesis-stress models of depression by considering the motivational factors in the models which have often been neglected.