Although depression has been associated with
both uncertainty about the causes of events and certainty that
negative events will happen, little is known about the relationship
between these two types of certainty-related beliefs. A six-week
prospective study assessed the concurrent and longitudinal relationships
among causal uncertainty, depressive predictive certainty, uncontrollability,
and depressive symptomatology. Causal uncertainty and depressive
predictive certainty were not related either concurrently or longitudinally.
Depressive predictive certainty was associated with increases
in depressive symptomatology over time, and causal uncertainty
was shown to be a concomitant of depression. Perceptions of uncontrollability
were found to be an antecedent of causal uncertainty as well as
a consequence of both causal uncertainty and depression. Uncontrollability,
however, was not related to depressive predictive certainty.
Implications of these results for models of causal uncertainty
and hopelessness depression are examined.