(PS4-52) Longitudinal Relationships Between Depressive Attributional Style and Internalizing Symptoms Among Neurodiverse Students in Their First Semester of College

Background: Anxiety and depression are among two of the most common psychiatric conditions reported in first-year college students (Pedrelli et al., 2015). For autistic adults, rates of anxiety and depression are estimated to be double that of their non-autistic peers, impacting quality of life, social success, and academic performance (Rosenau et al., 2023). One potential avenue to understand and address the elevated rates of anxiety and depression in autistic adults is depressive attributional style, a biased causal explanatory style in which negative life events are attributed to internal, stable, and global causes (Abramson et al., 1978). In the general population, depressive attributional style has been found to increase the likelihood an individual will experience symptoms of depression (Alloy et al., 1992). Therefore, we investigated potential relationships between depressive attributional style and anxiety and depressive (sadness and anhedonia) symptoms in autistic and non-autistic students over their first semester of college. We also explored baseline depressive attributional style across additional marginalized aspects of one’s identity based on race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, and examined potential interaction effects of autistic traits on these relationships.

Methods: Undergraduate students were recruited from four northeastern United States universities prior to the start of their fall semester. Our sample (N=144), includes 47 participants who self-identified or reported a formal autism diagnosis, and 97 non-autistic participants.  Participants completed baseline and endpoint questionnaires, as well as a two-minute survey twice per week, tracking changes in sadness, anhedonia, and anxiety throughout their first semester. 

Results: Longitudinal analyses demonstrate that elevated depressive attributional style at baseline predicted biweekly anxiety (b= 0.02, 95% CI: [0.01, 0.03], f2 =0.16), sadness (b=0.04, 95% CI: [0.02, 0.05], f2 =0.30), and anhedonia (b=0.02, 95% CI: [0.003, 0.03], f2 =0.32) symptoms across the semester. This pattern extended across (was not moderated by) levels of autistic traits, however participants who endorsed higher autistic traits endorsed significantly greater depressive attributional style at baseline, and greater anxiety, sadness, and anhedonia throughout the semester. The relationship between autistic traits and depressive attributional style was strongest for participants with a non-heterosexual orientation.           


Conclusions: Depressive attributional style prospectively predicted anxiety, sadness, and anhedonia across the first college semester. These relationships appear to hold across levels of autistic traits, however students with more autistic traits appear more likely to experience both higher levels of depressive attributional style and internalizing symptoms than their peers with fewer autistic traits. This study highlights the autistic community-identified need for mental health research, with attention to intersecting identities, and suggests depressive attributional style for further investigation as a potential treatment target.