Cognitive Approach to Explaining Depression

Question 1

What are negative self-schemas?

Answer 1

• Negative schemas develop in childhood due to rejection from parents or peers through criticism and exclusion or by the loss of close family
• This then filters into adulthood providing a negative framework to view life pessimistically
• Beck says depressives develop negative self schemas causing them to think this way

Question 2

What is Beck’s negative triad?

Answer 2

• Depression is made up of 3 components - the cognitive triad: negative views of the self, world and future
• These negative views affect cognitive processing, memory, problem solving, and our emotions
• Each compenent feeds into the next

1. Negative view of self: begins in childhood as negative self shemas from experiences e.g. rejection from peers. Individuals see themselves as being helpless, worthless, inadequate
2. Negative view of world: obstacles are seen as within the environment and so cannot be dealt with
3. Negative view of the future: personal worthlessness is seen as blocking any improvements further feeding into negative view of self

This forms an unending, intrusive cycle of uncontrollable depressive thoughts. Negative schemas and cognitive biases maintain the negative triad.

Question 3

What is Ellis’ ABC Model?

Answer 3

• The interpretation of external events is the cause for depression not the events themselves
• Key to depression is irrational beliefs
• Depression is produced by irrational thoughts triggered by unpleasant events
• (A) Activating event: experience in our environment
• (B) Belief about event - either rational or irrational
• (C) Consequence: reacting to the beliefs. Rational thoughts = healthy emotions + reactions. Irrational = unhealthy emotions = reactions

Question 4

How is practical applications a strength?

Answer 4

• Both Beck and Ellis’ explanations have led to practical applications in treating depression
• Understanding negative self schemas had led to development of CBT which targets faulty schemas to break them down and replace them with positive beliefs to treat depression
• Beck reviewed CBT and found it highly effective in treating depression thus suggesting the underlying assumptions of the cognitive approach are valid

Question 5

How is correlational evidence a weakness?

Answer 5

• Another weakness is that the supporting evidence is largely correlational
• This means that it is impossible to determine if negative schemas/irrational beliefs cause depression or are a consequence of depression
• If the former is true, the cognitive theory is valid
• But if the latter is true there must be an alternate cause for depression that the cognitve approach doesn’t explain
• For instance, social learning theory suggest that depressive tendencies and moods are developed from imitating role models showing these behaviours
• As supporting evidence for the cognitive explanation is inconclusive and has questionable validity, the validity of the approach is undermined

Question 6

How is incompleteness a weakness?

Answer 6

• A weakness of the cognitive explanation is that it overly focuses on internal mental thoughts ignoring credible research for the role of neurotransmitters like having low seratonin in the development of depression
• Gilton found that drug therapies like SSRIs were effective in treating depression for 65-75% of cases
• This shows that to fully understand depression we must take a holistic outlook including both biological and cognitive theories
• As the cognitive approach doesn’t do this it is incomplete

Question 7

How does Koster et al support?

Answer 7

• A strength of Beck’s explanation is that there is research support
• Koster et al studied student volunteers who took part in an attention task where they were given positive, negative, and neutral words
• Found that depressed PPs spent longer attending to the negative words than the non-depressed group
• This shows that selective attention and cognitive biases in depressives makes them atend to negative information and aspects of their life rather than the positives thus reinforcing their negaive thoughts
• This validates the cognitive explanation