of internalization. More data in support of long-term stability of attributional style has come from a diary study by Burns and Seligman. Using a technique called Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanation (CAVE), these authors found stable patterns of attributional style over a long time period. Attributional style may be domain-specific. Using the Attributional Style Assessment Test, Anderson and colleagues found some evidence for domain-specificity of style, for instance work-related attributions vs interpersonal attributions. Modelling of the items of the ASQ suggests that the positive and negative event information (e.g. getting a promotion, losing a job) and the causal nature of attributions – whether events are seen as global or local in scope, or as temporally stable or unstable, for instance – assess distinct factors. A global focus tends to emerge, for instance, independent of the valence of an event. Such effects are found more broadly in cognition, where they are referred to as Global versus local precedence. Optimistic and Pessimistic attributions emerged as independent of each other, supporting models in which these styles have distinct genetic and environmental origins. Relationship to other constructs Attributional style is, at least superficially, similar to locus of control. However, the locus of control is concerned with expectancies about the future while attribution style is concerned with attributions for the past. Whereas locus of control cuts across both positive and negative outcomes, authors in the attributional style field have distinguished between a Pessimistic Explanatory Style, in which failures are attributed to internal, stable, and global factors and successes to external, unstable, and specific causes, and an Optimistic Explanatory Style, in which successes are attributed to internal, stable, and global factors and failures to external, unstable, and specific causes. See also References Further reading External links Examples of explanatory style Learned optimism with videos demonstrating the 3 types of explanatory styles Note on explanatory style and its relationship to athletics Discussion of explanatory style and physical health Personality