When Will Bulimics Be Depressed and When Not? The Moderating Role of Attributional Style

We examined whether attributional style would moderate whether or not bulimic patients exhibited depressive symptoms. As predicted, clinical bulimics with a negative attributional style exhibited depressed symptoms whereas clinical bulimics without a negative attributional style did not. Negative attributional style bulimilcs fell in the severe range of symptom severity while bulimics without the negative style fell in the normal range of severity. Additionally, attributional style moderated severity of depressed symptoms just as much in clinical bulimics as in clinical depressives. Implications for future work are discussed, including how the cognitive theories of depression may further advance our understanding of depressed symptoms among bulimics.