Cognitive Explanations of MDD

Question 1

Cognitive Studies for MDD

Answer 1

Alloy et al (1999)

• hypothesised that the methods that people use to cognitively interpret their experiences influences their vulnerability to developing depression
• sample of non-depressed college students split into two groups identified as ‘high risk’ for depression and ‘low risk’ for depression based on a series of self-report questionnaires and semi structured interviews
• These interview and questionnaires continued for a regularly for 5.5 years
• Results showed that 17% of college students placed into the ‘high-risk’ category developed MDD
• 1% of college students placed into the ‘low-risk category’ developed MDD

Question 2

Cognitive Studies for MDD

Answer 2

Caseras et al (2007)

• hypothesised that MDD patients have negative attention biases so they tend to noticing more negative aspects of stimuli/experiences instead of positive ones, which relates back to selective abstraction
• People with and without MDD shown a series of pictures with negative, positive and neutral scenes for three seconds
• used eye-tracking technology to determine what aspects of the pictures they looked at first and which pictures the patients focused the most on:
• Results found no difference in initial orienting biases between people with MDD and people without MDD
• however, MDD patients had a visible bias to focus on negative picture scenes where their gaze stayed longer on the negative scenes once they looked at them (bias in maintenance of attention towards negative picture scenes)
• Shows that its harder to disengage with negative scenes when you have negative thinking
• Links to Beck: selective abstraction by focusing on negative aspects instead of the positive and neutral

Question 3

Sociocultural Studies: Hand-holding as a protective factor

Answer 3

Coan et al 2007, 3 hands, fMRI, lower threat response with closer hand-holding

1. Hypothesised that holding the hand of their significant other would reduce their level of stress of being threatened with an electric shock
2. A sample of women were threatened with an electrical shock and warned through being shown a series of images
3. The women would either hold their husband’s hand, the hand of an anonymous male experimenter or no hand during being in an fMRI
4. The womens ‘threat response’ measured through functional brain scanning was the lowest when they were holding their husband’s hand and the strongest when they weren’t holding a hand.
5. There was a correlation between marital satisfaction and threat response, so the women with a higher marital satisfaction coped better in the group that held their husband’s hand.
6. While social support is not part of psychology, the study demonstrated that there are physiological responses in the brain related to stress and having people to support you.
7. This act of physical touch, especially to those closest to you, seems to link with reduced stress when enduring something stressful or threatening, which could be a protective factor in depression.

Question 4

Sociocultural Factors for MDD

Answer 4

Brown and Harris 1978

One study that looked at the role of environmental stressors in the onset of depression was Brown and Harris (1978). It has been widely stated that women are twice as likely to suffer from depression than men, so Brown and Harris explored factors in the lives of women living in London, to determine if environmental factors could account for the higher prevalence of depression in women than in men.

Procedure: 500 women in London filled out a series of self-reported questionnaires about their mental health, biographical information and any stressful life events experienced. the most significant factors, making one vulnerable to depression were:

• losing a mother before the age of 11
• a lack of a trusting, confiding relationship,
• three kids under the age of 13
• being unemployed

8% of women were depressed, and 90% of the depressed women reported adverse life events

The 92% of non-depressed women were shown to only have 30% of adverse life events

Question 5

Evaluation of Alloy et al (1999)

Answer 5

• self-reported symptoms
• there were only two categories of positive and negative, so some people’s thinking styles might have been oversimplified or exaggerated by researchers to fit into one of the categories
• No genetic link explored
• No role of stress explored
• No cause and effect relationship determined

Question 6

Evaluation of Caseras 2007

Answer 6

• unnatural way to engage with negative aspects of life, but could represent negative media, TV, pictures, movies, etc.
• looking at two elements of negative attention biases: maintenance of attention and initial orientation
• no explanation for the cause of negative attention biases
• using technology instead of researcher and/or self-reporting

Question 7

Eval of Brown and Harris

Answer 7

Eval:

• self-reported symptoms
• specific environmental factors can be limited to time and place, lower generalisability for wider population
• good sample size
• correlational study
• the factors involved are not limited to women

Question 8

**Eval of Coan et al (2007)

Answer 8

• hand-holding is not a protective factor
• this is a simplified version of protective factors of deeper relationships or support
• artificial setting to measure how stress naturally occurs
• measured biological response through an fmri