Abstract

COMMENTARIES Explanatory Style as Reality Negotiation With One's Self-Theory, or Vice Versa C. R. Snyder University of Kansas Our journals, whether they have clinical, personality, or cradle to the grave) is to derive an understanding of what social psychology as their emphasis, all reference something events are causally or associatively linked to each other. This relevant to the revised helplessness theory (see Abramson, often has to do with external events in our world, but to Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). Scholarly books and textbooks operate effectively, our lifelong task is to ascertain how we in psychology pay similar attention to this perspective. A are causally or associatively linked to outcomes. graduate student, recently returned from the meeting of the A second basic dimension of self-appraisal is valence-of Eastern Psychological Association, informed me that many act, which reflects the degree to which any outcome is ap- of the papers presented there were on explanatory style. Let praised on a continuum from negative to positive. This "bad- there be no doubt about it, explanatory style is the rage. ness-goodness7' characteristic of outcomes represents the In part, this explosion of interest is driven by our American value judgments that society and the individual