Cognitive explanations for depression Flashcards
What is Cognitive Psychology?
Cognitive psychology focuses on how we think, and how this affects behaviour.
What is Beck’s cognitive theory of depression?
A well-known psychologist in this area, Beck suggests that faulty or biased thought patterns lead to depression. It states that people become depressed due to how they think of themselves, the future and their situation.
What are negative schemas?
A schema is a memory bank of information in a situation. It is the built up experience of the world. This effects emotion and behavior. Beck suggested that in depression, they focus on the negative sides, and build more negative schemas. Stress triggers these and introduces negative thoughts.
What are cognitive errors in thinking?
This is biased information processing. We tend to look at the negative solely. Examples of this are- arbitrary inference, selective abstraction.
What is the negative cognitive triad?
This focuses on three views- the self, the situation and the future.
It creates hopelessness as the sufferer believes nothing will help, and the future will be just as bad.
Evaluative strengths of the cognitive model.
There is supporting evidence- Butler and Beck (2000) reviewed 14 meta-analyses investigating the effectiveness of cognitive therapy. They concluded 80% of adults benefitted.
It has real-life applications that affect society today.
Evaluative weaknesses of the cognitive model.
An opposing theory is the monoamine hypothesis, as a biological explanation. This suggests that depression has a biological factor, and has clear evidence.
