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Cognitive Etiology of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) image - Coggle…

- - - - negative thoughts about the self
      - negative thoughts about the future
      - negative thoughts about the world
    - - tend to view
        themselves as helpless, worthless, and inadequate.
      - interpreting events in the world in an unrealistically negative and defeatist way.
      - they see the world as posing obstacles that can’t be handled
      - seeing the future as totally hopeless because their worthlessness will prevent their situation improving.
    - - !they interfere with normal cognitive processing!
        
        leading to impairments in perception, memory and problem solving
        
        with the person becoming obsessed with negative thoughts.
  - - - Death of a parent or sibling
      - Parental rejection, criticism, overprotection, neglect, or abuse
      - Bullying at school or exclusion from peer group
      - Beck claimed that negative schemas may be acquired
        in childhood as a result of a traumatic event.
    - - They possess a set of beliefs and expectations about themselves that are essentially negative and pessimistic.
  - - - Such illogical thought patterns are self-defeating and can cause great anxiety or depression for the individual
      - being prone to such logical errors leads to tending to focus solely on certain aspects of a situation but ignoring equally relevant information
    - - Such thoughts are exacerbated by the cognitive triad
- - - - Attributional Processes
        
        cognitive version of the Learned Helplessness Theory by reformulating learned helplessness in terms of attributional processes (i.e. how people explain the cause of an event).
        
        stability (whether the cause is stable and
        permanent or unstable and transient)
        
        global or specific (whether the cause relates to the 'whole' person or just some particular feature characteristic)
        
        locus (whether the cause is internal - to do with a person themselves, or external - to do with some aspect of the situation)
        
        Abramson et al. argued that people who attribute failure to internal, stable, and global causes are more likely to become depressed than those who attribute failure to external, unstable and specific causes.
  - - - Learned Helplessness Theory
        
        depression occurs when a person learns that their attempts to escape negative situations make no difference.
        
        As a consequence they become passive and will endure aversive stimuli or environments even when escape is possible.
        
        the individual gives up trying to influence their environment because they have learned that they are helpless as a consequence of having no control over what happens to them.
      - Procedure
        
        A dog put into a partitioned cage learns to escape when the floor is electrified.
        
        If the dog is restrained whilst being shocked it eventually stops trying to escape.
        
        Results
        
        Dogs subjected to inescapable electric shocks later failed to escape from shocks even when it was possible to do so. Moreover, they exhibited some of the symptoms of depression found in humans (lethargy, sluggishness, passive in the face of stress and appetite loss).
      - Criticism
        
        Although Seligman’s account may explain depression to a certain extent, it fails to take into account cognitions (thoughts).
  - - - Their thinking style was tested and they were placed in either the ‘positive thinking group’ or ‘negative thinking group’.
      - Results
        
        After 6 years the researchers found that only 1% of the positive group developed depression compared to 17% of the ‘negative’ group.
        
        These results indicate there may be a link between cognitive style and development of depression.
        
        Criticisms
        
        However such a study may suffer from demand characteristics. The results are also correlational. It is important to remember that the precise role of cognitive processes is yet to be determined.
        
        The maladaptive cognitions seen in depressed people may be a consequence rather than a cause of depression.