Depression and the explanation of events that happen to self, close others, and strangers.
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TL;DR
The results indicate that depressives do not treat close others as extensions of the self, at least in terms of their attributional patterns.
Abstract
Depressive and nondepressive college students attributed causality for positive and negative events that happened to either themselves, a close other, or a typical student. Depressives made less optimistic attributions than nondepressives when explaining events that happened to themselves. However, depressives and nondepressives generally made similar attributions about others; both groups were optimistic when explaining events that happened to their best friend or romantic partner and less optimistic when explaining events that happened to the typical student. The results indicate that depressives do not treat close others as extensions of the self, at least in terms of their attributional patterns. Furthermore, depressives were aware of the extent to which their attributions benefitted or harmed the desired identity of the actor.