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Journal
of
Counseling Psychology
1993,
Vol. 40, No. 3,
357-364Copyright
1993 by the
American Psychological Association,
Inc.
0022-0167/93/53.00
Distinguishing Among Antecedents, Concomitants,
and
Consequences
of Problem-Solving Appraisal
and
Depressive Symptoms
Wayne
A.
Dixon,
P.
Paul Heppner, Jeffery
W.
Burnett,
Wayne
P.
Anderson,
and
Phillip
K.
Wood
In
the
present study,
a
prospective design
was
used
and
data were collected from
277
introductory
psychology students
to
distinguish among
the
antecedents, concomitants,
and
consequences
of
problem-solving appraisal
and
depression.
The
results
of
structural equation path analyses provide
preliminary evidence that self-appraised ineffective problem-solving ability
is an
antecedent that
may play
a
causal role
in
predicting future depressive symptoms. However,
the
results also suggest
that problem-solving appraisal
is a
concomitant
of
depressive symptoms such that
the
experience
of depressive symptoms
may
cause temporary deficits
in
self-appraisal
of
problem-solving ability.
There
are
presently
at
least
7
million women
and 3.5 mil-
lion
men in the
United States with diagnosable depression;
similar numbers could
be
diagnosed
as
experiencing
dys-
thymia (McGrath, Keita, Strickland,
&
Russo, 1990).
Fur-
thermore,
the
American Psychiatric Association (1980)
estimated that depression
may
result
in
psychiatric hospi-
talization
for
as many as 6%
of
all women and
3%
of
all
men.
Thus,
depression and depressive symptoms constitute
a
com-
mon
and
serious problem
of
enormous personal
and
social
significance.
The
costs
to
society
in
decreased work
pro-
ductivity
and the
expense
of
treatments have been estimated
to
be as
high
as $11
billion
per
year (Craighead, Kennedy,
Raczynski,
& Dow,
1984).
Depression and depressive symptoms are especially prom-
inent among U.S. college students.
It
has been estimated that
college students
are
twice
as
likely
to
suffer from clinical
depression
and
dysthymia
as are
people
of
similar ages
and
backgrounds
in the
workforce (Bonner
&
Rich, 1988).
De-
pression
and
dysthymia have special relevance
to
the college
environment
in
that they interfere with
the
educational
pro-
cess and are often associated with lack of college success and
attrition (Blumberg, 1984).
The
need
to
reduce depression
and dysthymia
in the
college population
is
therefore
a
major
concern.
It
has
been suggested
for
some time that ineffective
problem-solving results
in
stressful outcomes
and
psycho-
logical maladjustment, such
as
depression (e.g., D'Zurilla
&
Goldfried,
1971;
Nezu, Nezu, & Perri, 1989). Within the past
decade, there
has
been increased attention
to
cognitive
self-
appraisal
of
one's ability
to
resolve problematic situations
Wayne A. Dixon,
P.
Paul Heppner, Jeffery W. Burnett, Wayne
P.
Anderson,
and
Phillip
K.
Wood, Department
of
Psychology,
Uni-
versity
of
Missouri—Columbia.
This study
was
undertaken
as
part
of a
dissertation conducted
by
Wayne A. Dixon under
the
supervision
of
Wayne P. Anderson
and
P.
Paul Heppner. Portions
of
this article were presented
in
August
1992
at the
100th Annual Convention
of
the American Psycholog-
ical Association, Washington,
DC.
Correspondence concerning this article should
be
addressed
to
Wayne
A.
Dixon, Department
of
Psychology, University
of Mis-
souri,
210
McAlester Hall, Columbia, Missouri
65211.
(e.g., Bandura,
1986;
Butler
&
Meichenbaum,
1981;
Heppner
&
Petersen,
1982)
especially
as it
relates
to de-
pression
(see
Nezu
et al.,
1989).
For
example, Butler
and
Meichenbaum (1981)
and
Bandura (1986) argued that
self-
appraisals,
or
self-efficacy judgments,
are
directly related
to
coping performance. Later research
has
confirmed that
problem-solving appraisal
(as
measured
by the
Problem
Solving Inventory;
PSI;
Heppner
&
Petersen,
1982) is as-
sociated with
a
wide range
of
cognitive, behavioral,
and
affective variables related
to
problem solving,
as
well
as
with various indexes
of
psychological adjustment, particu-
larly depression
(see
Dixon, Heppner,
&
Anderson,
1991;
Dixon, Heppner, Burnett,
&
Lips, 1993; Heppner, 1988).
In
a
review
of
the literature, Dixon (1992) revealed that
at
least
22
studies have examined
in
some
way the
relation
between problem-solving appraisal (as measured by Heppner
and Petersen's,
1982, PSI) and
depression. These studies
have included group comparisons, correlational studies,
and
experimental designs.
For
example, four cross-sectional
extreme-group design studies examined,
in
part, differences
in depression scores (operationalized through different
as-
sessment instruments) between self-appraised effective
and
self-appraised ineffective problem solvers among college
students. These studies consistently found that, among other
variables, self-appraised ineffective problem solvers,
as
compared with effective problem solvers, reported signifi-
cantly higher levels
of
depressive symptoms (e.g., Heppner
& Anderson, 1985; Nezu, 1985). Nezu (1986a) extended this
research
by
investigating differences
in
self-appraised
problem-solving ability between clinically depressed hospi-
talized psychiatric patients
and
normal controls. Results
in-
dicated that depressed subjects,
as
compared with nonde-
pressed subjects, appraised themselves
as
significantly less
effective problem solvers.
Other cross-sectional correlational studies have examined,
in part,
the
relation between problem-solving appraisal
and
depressive symptoms across
a
wide variety
of
populations
(e.g., college students, rural farmers, psychiatric patients,
correctional inmates,
and
different cultural groups). These
studies consistently have demonstrated
a
significant corre-
lation between problem-solving appraisal
and
depression
such that increases
in
perceived ineffective problem solving
are associated with increases
in
depressive symptoms (e.g.,
357
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