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Cognitive Etiology of MDD - Coggle Diagram
Cognitive Etiology of MDD
Aaron Beck(1967):
Identified that there are three mechanisms that are responsible for depression
Cognitive Triad
: The three negative ways of thinking that are typical in individuals with depression (Negative View of the self <---> Negative View of the world<---> Negative view of the future)
Negative Self Schemas
: Depression prone individuals develop a negative self-schema. These could be caused by traumatic events in childhood.
Errors in Logic
: People with negative Self-Schema are likely to make logical errors in their thinking and can focus on certain aspects of a situation while ignoring the other equally important information.
Examples of Errors in Logic include:
Arbitrary inference
- assuming the word without any evidence to Back it up.
Selective Abstraction
- Only focusing on the worst aspects of a situation.
Magnification or Minimization
- If they have a problem they will make it seem larger or if they have a solution they will make it seem smaller.
Personalization
- Negative events are interpreted as their fault.
Dichotomous thinking
- Everything is seen as black and white and there is no in between.
Traumatic events that could cause negative self-schema are:
Death of a Parent or sibling
parental rejection, Criticism, Overprotection, Neglect or abuse
Bullying at school or exclusion from peer group
Alloy et al. (1999)
: studied young Americans in their 20s for 6 years to see how their thinking style affected their mental health. Participants were divided into a "positive thinking" group and a "negative thinking" group. After 6 years, only 1% of the positive group developed depression, compared to 17% of the negative group. This suggests a possible connection between thinking style and depression.
However, the study might be influenced by demand characteristics, where participants behave in ways they think the researchers expect. Additionally, the results are correlational, meaning they show a relationship but not cause and effect. It’s unclear if negative thinking causes depression or if depression leads to negative thinking
Martin Seligman (1974)
: Seligman’s learned helplessness theory suggests that depression happens when someone believes they can't change or escape negative situations, no matter how hard they try.
Aim
:To study learned helplessness and its link to depression.
Participants
:Dogs placed in a partitioned cage.
Procedure
: Dogs were initially trained to escape electric shocks by moving to another part of the cage. Later, some dogs were restrained and exposed to inescapable electric shocks.
Results
: Dogs exposed to inescapable shocks stopped trying to escape, even when escape was possible later. They showed symptoms similar to human depression, such as lethargy, passivity, and appetite loss.
This study led to a better understanding in how learned helplessness (This is when individuals stops trying to change or control their situation because of their past experiences that their actions have no impact on the outcome of their situations). Although this may explain depression, it is limited as it doesn't take cognition into account.
Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale (1978)
: They updated the helplessness theory by focusing on how people explain the causes of events turning it into a cognitive theory.
They depression attributed style is based on three dimensions:
Locus
: Is the cause internal (about the person) or external (about the situation)
Stability
: Is the cause permanent (stable) or temporary (unstable)
Global or Specific
: Does the cause affect the entire person (global) or just one specific area (specific)?
In this theory, it explains that explaining experiencing a negative event isn't enough to cause helplessness or depression. They explained that people who blame failures on internal, stable, and global causes are more likely to become depressed than those who attribute failures to external, unstable, and specific causes
Theoretical Assumption(s)
:
How someone interprets and processes life events affects whether they develop a disorder.
Extra Studies on Depression
:
Nolen-Hoeksema (2000)
: Rumination predicts the onset of depression more consistently than its duration, but when paired with negative thinking, it can extend depressive symptoms
Farb et al. (2011)
: Patients with recurring depression showed increased activity in the medial prefrontal gyrus, associated with higher levels of rumination
Joiner et al. (1996)
: Depression requires both cognitive patterns and environmental triggers
