The helplessness-hopelessness theory and daily mood experience: An idiographic and cross-situational perspective

The experience sampling method was used to examine the helplessness-hopelessness theory as a model of normal mood fluctuations. Ninety-one participants were signaled 5 times daily for a 1-week period to provide reports of negative events, specific cognitions, and anxiety and depression. Attributional and perception of control styles did not explain anxious or depressed moods, but they were predictive of the causal attributions and perceptions of control made across diverse environmental contexts. Furthermore, idiographic analyses demonstrated that specific causal attributions about negative events explained fluctuations in depressed mood within the Bow of daily life. In contrast to the theory, perceptions of event controllability were not related to fluctuations in anxious mood or to the later formulation of causal attributions. Implications for understanding normal mood experience and the helplessness-hopelessness theory are discussed.