One theme present in the research on social confidence is that of the negative influence of adolescent attributional style. Individuals who consistently attribute social failures to internal, stable factors, and attribute social success to unstable, external factors, tend to score lower on levels of social self-efficacy, social initiative, and social assertiveness. Cross-sectional research has revealed that, in 93 Australian high-school students sampled, adolescents who reported low levels of social self-efficacy and social assertiveness also tended to have the maladaptive attributional styles mentioned above (Innes & Thomas, 1989). Similarly, a more recent study, based on data from 220 college-age adolescents, found that lonely adolescents who were more likely to report lower levels of social initiative and social assertiveness were also more likely to disparage themselves after social failures than were non-lonely persons (Christensen & Kashy, 1998). Due to the cross-sectional nature of the studies discussed above, it is difficult to determine whether one's attributional style influences his or her level of social confidence, one's level of social confidence affects his or her attributional style, or whether there is a common underlying antecedent.