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Explaining Depression - Ellis's ABC Model , Research and Evaluation -…
Explaining Depression - Ellis's ABC Model , Research and Evaluation
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The ABC Model
A - Activating event : Something happens in the environment around you , for example your teacher tells you she is unhappy with your work
B - Beliefs : You hold a belief about the event or situation , for example you see yourself as a failure
C - Consequence : You have an emotional response to your belief, for example a feeling of worthlessness
The activating event triggers an emotion that is seen as true and the consequence is that the individual becomes depressed because they have a negative view about themself and no confidence in their ability
Other people who do not tend towards depression may react completely differently . For instance when a teacher tells you that she is unhappy with your work , the belief may be that you did your best with the consequent emotion of being motivated to do better
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Depression symptoms and cognitive control of emotion cues : a functional magnetic resonance imaging study - Beevers , Clasen , Stice and Schnyer (2010)
Aims
To assess whether brain areas associated with cognitive control are affected by emotional stimuli in individuals with mild depressive symptoms
To assess whether ventral lateral pre frontal cortex function is altered in individuals with mild to moderate depressive symptoms during cognitive control of stimuli
To see whether neural mechanisms can show the degree of vulnerability to developing severer forms of depression
Procedure
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Depression in all participants was measured with the well established centre for epidemiologic studies depression scale (CESD) , with 13 participants being placed in a low depression symptoms group and 14 in a high depression symptoms group
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Cue stimuli consisted of three facial types , happy , sad and neutral , along with a control condition of geometric shape cues
432 trials were conducted where a single facial or geometric shape cue was presented on a screen along with one of two target stimuli ( either or * on the screen in the same location as the shape cue)
Participants pressed a button to indicate which target stimuli was presented and the time measured to do this was recorded
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Findings
Different brain activation was recorded between the LDG and the HDG during. presentation of happy or sad faces , in brain areas requiring cognitive control over emotional stimuli ( ventral lateral pre frontal cortex function )
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Conclusions
Individuals with mild to moderate levels of depression have difficulty in activating brain areas associated with cognitive control of emotional information
Depressive symptoms are associated with impaired engagement of lateral pre frontal cortex and parietal regions during cognitive control of emotional information
Poor cognitive control of emotional information may indicate levels of vulnerability to more severe forms of depression
Evaluation
The findings do not generalise to males as only females were tested . The age range of participants was also narrow and so results can't be generalised to children or older adults
Participants menstrual cycles were not assessed and so it is not known whether hormonal fluctuations associated with menstrual cycle activity may have affected the findings
The CESD scale for measuring depression is regarded as highly reliable and valid , giving support to the findings
Longitudinal research would be needed to assess if deficits in cognitive control of emotional information are a cause or consequence of mild to moderate depressive symptoms and whether such symptoms do predict the onset of severer forms of depression
If the findings are true then improving cognitive control may help prevent the onset of more severe forms of depression
McIntosh and Fischer (2000) tested the negative cognitive triad to see if it contains the three proposed distinct types of negative thought . They found no clear separation of negative thoughts but instead a single , one dimensional negative perception of the self , suggesting retention of all three areas of the triad as separate dimensions in unnecessary for representing the structure of depressive cognition
Boury et al (2001) monitored students negative thoughts with the Beck depression inventory (BDI) , finding that depressives misinterpret facts and experiences in a negative fashion and feel hopeless about the future , giving support to becks cognitive explanation
Evaluation
There is lots of research evidence supporting the idea of cognitive vulnerability being linked to the onset of depression , with depressive selectively attending to negative stimuli
The cognitive explanation of depression is based upon scientific principles that permit objective testing , allowing improvement of the model and therefore greater understanding of the disorder
A high degree of success has been achieved in treating depression with cognitive therapies in comparison to therapies based on other explanations , therefore providing support for such explanations . Most evidence linking negative thinking to depression is correlational and doesn't indicate negative thoughts causing depression . Beck came to believe it was a bi-directional relationship , where depressed individuals thoughts cause depression and vice versa
A big strength of the theory is that it acknowledges that other aspects such as genes , development and early experiences can lead to certain thinking patterns which can then lead to depression
The cognitive approach has had less success in explaining and treating the manic component of bipolar depression , lessening support for the model as a global explanation of depression
Some critics believe that not at depressed people have a distorted view of their own abilities and that while they may focus on negative elements of events they do actually understand such events accurately and therefore don't show the negative biases that beck believes they should
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