Explanatory Style - Pervasiveness

Your Explanatory Style is how you normally interpret the cause of the events in your life. The positive or negative twist you give to occurrences. It demonstrates your level of optimism or pessimism. Pervasiveness is one of 3 dimensions of this. The other two dimensions are: Permanence - is this a one time happening or is this the way it always is? and Personalization - is it my fault or someone else's? If you are habitually negative in any of these dimensions you can be subject to bouts of depression. The more dimensions that are negative the more likely you are to be depressed.

The Pervasiveness dimension of Explanatory style refers to your belief that the cause is specific to this one area of your life or is generic across all areas of your life: I'm smart at math. vs. I'm smart.

If your explanatory style is or leans toward pervasiveness you spread what happens in one aspect of your life as being the same in all aspects of your life. This is good for positive events like winning a race or getting a good grade or a promotion. You want those positive things to affect as many aspects of your life as possible. The feeling that you can do anything.

Conversely, having a pervasive explanatory style is not such a good thing for negative events. You want to attribute that poor grade to something as specific as possible. "I didn't study hard enough for that math test" vs "I'm poor at math" or, even worse, "I'm stupid".

You can have opposite styles for positive events and negative events. You can have pervasive style for negative events "I'm stupid" and a non-pervasive style for positive events "I got lucky that time". Of course the best explanatory style is to be pervasive for positive events and specific for negative events.

Here's a chart to illustrate the differences for the different type of events. I've highlighted in green the more optimistic way of explaining the cause of the event.

Event	Pervasive	Specific
Getting Criticized about a poor performance	I'm stupid I can't do anything right	I didn't think that through very well and it didn't come out right He doesn't think I did that right.
Getting praised about a good performance	I'm good I can do anything	That's just her opinion It just worked out right this time
Losing your job	I am such a loser I am worthless	Things didn't work out at that job. But I'm still a good person That was a bad break
Getting a promotion	I am good at my job. I am a hard worker	I worked hard to get the new position. I was lucky.
Having a minor car accident	Nothing ever goes right for me. I have the worst luck.	I should drive more carefully The roads were slippery
Getting rejected for a date	I am such a loser No one will ever want me.	She must be in a bad mood She doesn't know what she's missing.

Explaining bad events with explanations that encompass most, if not all, aspects of your life can be very damaging. If You explain a job loss in a pervasive manner, you start treating the people around you accordingly. After all, if losing your job makes you worthless, then you don't deserve your wife, your house, maybe even your life. That's exceedingly depressing.

If you find yourself thinking about a negative event in a pervasive way, change it into something specific to that event.

Conversely, if you find yourself thinking about a positive event in a specific way, try attributing it to something more pervasive. Follow the examples above.

As I said in my article Explanatory Style, your Style is closely linked to your Self Concept and therefore Self Esteem. Which is all part of your personal beliefs. Beliefs are VERY powerful and this is another aspect of this power.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy has been shown to be the most effective in combating depression and a negative explanatory style is one of the biggest contributors toward depression. Improve your Explanatory Style and you improve your life.

Read the articles on each of the dimensions then read about Changing Your Thoughts to become more optimistic.

Let me know what you think about this article by submitting a Comment. I'll post appropriate comments. Maybe your comment will help someone else.