Cognitive Etiology of MDD

Aaron Beck (1967) came up with three mechanisms that were responsible for depression.

Studies

Negative Self Schemas

Errors in Logic

The Cognitive Triad

Are three forms of negative thinking that interact and interfere with cognitive processing, which is typical for individuals with depression as they occur spontaneously

As a result, the individuals suffer from impairments in perception, memory, and problem solving as the person creates an obsession with negative thoughts

Negative views of the world

Negative views of the future

Negative views of oneself

They see the future as hopeless, the feeling of being worthless worsen their situation

Events are interpreted in a negative way and as obstacles for them

They view themselves as worthless, hopeless, lonely and as not loved

These thoughts worsen and get worse because of the cognitive triad

Magnification & Minimisation

Personalization

Selective Abstraction

Dichotomous Thinking

Arbitrary Inference

Alloy et al. (1999)

Martin Seligman (1974): Learned Helplessness

Abramson, Seligman, Teasdale (1978)

Individuals with depression are prone to develop a negative self-schema as they develop a set of beliefs about themselves that are pessimistic and negative

The negative schemas could also be acquired as a result of a traumatic childhood event, from an early age on such as:

Parental abuse, rejection, overprotection, criticism or abuse

Bullying or social exclusion

Death of a parent or sibling

It predisposes an individual to depression. Someone who acquires the cognitive triad may not necessarily develop depression.

In order to activate the negative schema later in life, a stressful life event is required. Once activated, illogical thoughts and cognitive biases dominate the thoughts

Drawing negative conclusions without of supporting data.

The focus on the worst aspects of situations

Problems appear bigger than they are. Solutions appear smaller.

Negative events are interpreted as their own fault.

Everything seems black and white without anything in between.

The thoughts are automatic: A stream of automatic negative thoughts leads to depression

Aim: To see if one's thinking patterns could be used to predict the onset of depression

Method: Longitudinal study for 6 years on randomly selected Americans

Procedure: Their thinking style was tested in the beginning of the study. They were placed in either the positive cognitive group (low risk) or the negative cognitive group (high risk) based on the number of tests such as the cognitive style questionnaire

Results: After 6 years, the researchers found that only 1% of those in the positive thinking group developed depression, compared to 17% in the negative thinking group. this indicates that there might be a link between cognitive style and the development of depression

Evaluation: Correlational no clear cause and effect, no control over daily lives, doesn't take genetics into consideration and the strong trend in one's thinking and development of depression

Is a cognitive explanation of depression.You feel like you have no way to escape, so eventually you just stop trying.As a consequence you become passive and will endure
aversive stimuli or environments even when escape is
possible.

The theory was based on dogs' behavior: Dogs would receive electric shock, where some were allowed to escape and some were not. The dogs that were not allowed to escape did not even try to escape, even when shown how.

This led Seligman (1974) to explain depression in
humans in terms of learned helplessness. An
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. If we increase control over some aspects of our lives, it leads to less anxiety and stress.

Evaluation: The theory explains depression to a certain extent, however it fails to take cognitions into account.

A cognitive version of the theory was introduced by reformulating the Learned Helplessness theory in terms of attributional processes

It is based on three dimensions:

  1. locus (whether a cause is internal or external)
  2. stability (whether the cause is stable/permanent or unstable/transient)
  3. global or specific (whether the cause relates to the "whole" or a specific characteristic of a person)

They argued that people who fail to attribute failure to internal, stable, and global causes are more likely to become depressed than those who attribute external, unstable, and specific causes. This is because the attributional style leads to the conclusion that they are unable to change things for the better.

Other Studies

Nolen-Hoeksema (2000): Rumination appears to more consistently predict the onset of depression rather than the duration. However, rumination in combination with negative cognitive styles can predict the duration of depressive symptoms.

Farb et al (2011): Relapsing patients showed more activity in the frontal region of the brain (medial prefrontal gyrus). These responses were also linked to higher rumination.

Joiner et al (1996):Patterns of cognition alone are not enough to lead to depression, they must also be in response to environmental stimuli.