L2: Models of Depression

Question 1

What are the main models of depression?

Answer 1

• Becks cognitive model
• williams theory of anxiety and depression
• lemoults cognitive perspective
• seligmans reformulated helplessness theory
• hopelessness theory
• diathesis stress model
• general model
• relapse of depression
• network perspective of depression

Question 2

how did becks view on cognition change?

Answer 2

first he thought cognition caused emotion, but then saw cognition as part of a complex interaction of biological psychological, and social factors

Question 3

what are the 2 main components of becks cognitiv emodel?

Answer 3

cognitive structures underlying emotional disorders and cognitive processes in their onset and maintenance.

Question 4

What does Beck’s cognitive model look like?

Answer 4

(early) learning experiences -> dysfunctional schemata and core beliefs -> activated by critical incident -> maladtipve beliefs/assumptions -> negative automatic thoughts -> depression

Question 5

what are some common dysfunctional schemata & core beliefs in depression?

Answer 5

that you are unlovable
negative cognitive triad about self, world, and future

Question 6

what does becks cognitive therapy focus on?

Answer 6

negative automatic thoughts generated by dysfunctional schemas and logical distortions in thinking.

Question 7

what does Clarks adaptation of cognitive involve?

Answer 7

panic disorder
involves clients tendency to catastrophically misinterpret internal sensations, leading to hypervigilance and avoidance behaviors
-> treatement based on this model

Question 8

what are some criticisms on clarks adaptation on the cognitive model?

Answer 8

con: too focused on a single level of represenetation, suggesting need for higher level representations (not just cognitive), still unclear why individuals differ in their interpretations of threat/sensation
pro: offer a new understanding of panic & anxiety

Question 9

What are some ccommon maladaptie beliefs/assumptions seen in depression?

Answer 9

“If I am not approved by everyone, then I am not worthwhile”
- other Cognitive errors such as overgeneralization, selective abstraction, personalisation, dichotomous thinking, magnification & minimalization and arbitrary inference

Question 10

what is personalization in depression?

Answer 10

blaming one’s self for unwanted external events, when in fact they may have other causes.

Question 11

what is magnification & minimization in depression?

Answer 11

“making a mountain out of a molehill” when unwanted events take place, and to do the opposite when positive events occur

Question 12

what is arbitrary inference?

Answer 12

reaching a conclusion that is not supported or may be disconfirmed by evidence

Question 13

what is overgeneralization in depression?

Answer 13

mistakenly inferring broad general conclusions from isolated unwanted events

Question 14

what is selective abstraction in depression?

Answer 14

taking a detail out of context allowing it to determine your conclusions while ignoring all other explanations

Question 15

what is dichotomous thinking in depression?

Answer 15

thinking in “black and white” terms rather than “shades of gray.” As a result, any experience that is not a complete success is a complete failure.

Question 16

what is the (loss of) cognitive control symptom in depression?

Answer 16

not being able to inhibit, update, and shift appropriately (start to ruminate etc.)
- diminished ability to think or concentrate
- difficulties making decisions
- especially when there is no clear assignment (when u have nothing to do)
- when there is much possibility of ruminating and thinking about personal matters
- many forms of emotional regulation require these skills

Question 17

What is inhibition?

Answer 17

working memory
- holding/manipulating information, regulating attention
- inhibition = “pushing away” irrelevant info

Question 18

what does the (loss of) cognitive control lead to according to lemoult?

Answer 18

cognitive biases & loss of cognitive emotion regulation

Question 19

what are the 4 cognitive biases in Lemoult cognitive perspective on depression?

Answer 19

• self referential processing bias
• attention
• interpretation
• memory

Question 20

what is the self referential processing bias?

Answer 20

associate self more w underlying negative schemas

Question 21

what is the attention bias in depression?

Answer 21

Selective attention to negative (mood congruent) stimuli
Only for relatively long presentation time
disengagement more effort

Question 22

what prompted williams to make his model on anxiety & depression?

Answer 22

the failure to find global biases in emotional disorders led to him to propose a model in which cognitive biases were specific to specific emotional disorders

Question 23

what is priming vs elaboration?

Answer 23

priming: an automatic stage of processing in which the stimulus may be linked with its representation in long term memory
elaboration: subsequent strategic or resource-demanding processes

Question 24

what does williams model of anxiety and depression say?

Answer 24

anxiety: initial priming/automatic processes are biased TOWARDS the detection of threat (ie individual w dog phobia will automatically process a stimulus as if it was a dog, while someone else might just see it as a four legged table. aka the preattentive processes become “tuned” to detect personally significant simuli) , subsequent elaboration are biased AWAY from the processing of threat (so remember things related to the phobia less)
depression: elaboration biased towards negative things (shown in mnemonic tasks)

Question 25

why are there doubts about williams model?

Answer 25

cus studying attentional biases is hard and often the material used is not personally relevant enough

Question 26

What did Williams say in his paper on memory and its relation to depression?

Answer 26

- overgeneral memory: difficulty in voluntarily retrieving specific autobiographical memories - also in other mood disorder, but not in anxiety or other disorders - mood congruent recall: better recall negative events (autobiographical memory test AMT) - delayed retrieval of positive memories rather than speeded retreival of negative memories - inappropriate retreival strategies that yielded general rather than specific memoreis results in ineffective problem solving skills - limits the ability to repair negative mood (relayed recovery, problems in imagining specific future events: diffculty seeing that things may get better)

Question 27

what were the clinical implications of williams findings on memory x depression?

Answer 27

- training of focusing on specific elements - learning to accept negative emotions - mindfullness based CT

Question 28

how did seligman come up with his learned helplessness theory?

Answer 28

lab work with dogs dogs were placed in a shuttle box designed so dog could sometimes move from one side to the other, and sometimes a barrier would go up -> found that if dogs experienced inescapable shock for number of trials they failed to escape from subsequent shocks even when it was possible to do so -> learned helplessness, could also account for human conditions like depression?

Question 29

how did seligman think that learned helplessness theory applied to depression in humans?

Answer 29

thought that people who experienced continious non-contingent (unconditional) positive reinforcement throughout childhood could then start to see the worlm in an uncontrollable way even tho in reality control over reinforcement may be possible. become passive.

Question 30

what were some issues with seligmans original learned helplessness theory?

Answer 30

- empirical failures (students did not become helpless) - there were features of depression for which the original theory provided no account (ie the self esteem deficit is not predictable from the experience of unconditional rewards in childhood (which leads to helplessness in adulthood))

Question 31

what was the reformulated helplessness theory

Answer 31

seligman theory + weiners attribution theory so helplessness still seen to arise from the perception of uncontrollability, the effects were now seen to depend both on type & importance of the event experienced, together w the explanation that the individual produced for the cause of the vent

Question 32

what was identified to be a vulnerability factor for depression in the reformulated helplessness theory?

Answer 32

when ppl make - internal-stable-global attribution for the cause of negative events (ie due to my personality) - external-unstable-specific attributions for the cause of positive events (ie due to luck)

Question 33

how is the support for the reformulated helplessness theory

Answer 33

- mixed support (depends on type of study) - weak evidence for a pre existing negative attributional style in individuals prone to depression - implicit attributions might not be detected by studies - mixed evidence for proposed external-specific-unstable depressive style for positive events - theorys excessive focus on causes of events neglects other factors (like consequences & coping mechanisms) - Real-world events may override an individual's characteristic attributional style, affecting their emotional response - links between attributional style and emotion may be weakly correlational rather than causal

Question 34

how did the hopeless theory come about?

Answer 34

from the reformulated learned helplessness theory + becks cognitive therapy framework cus there were problems with the first

Question 35

how is the hopelessness theory different from the helplessness theory?

Answer 35

- requires only occurrence of negative events, not necessarily uncontrollable ones, unlike learned helplessness theory. - emphasis on perceived negativity rather than lack of control

Question 36

what does hopelessness theory say?

Answer 36

depressed individuals may blame themselves for events without perceiving them as uncontrollable

Question 37

what is empirical support for hopelessness theory like?

Answer 37

- Some empirical support exists - but it's been further restricted to apply only to "hopelessness depression." - Support for the role of hopelessness primarily comes from the cognitive therapy literature

Question 38

What is rumination?

Answer 38

- Thinking repetively and passively - Relation with onset of depressive episodes - Rumination common to depression, GAD, social anxiety, PTSD, and EDs - Mediates differences between sexes - Prolonged emotional response to stress - Poor problem solving behavior - Higher levels of social exclusion & victimization - plays role in inhibiting negative information & updating info in working memory

Question 39

what are the clinical implications of findings on rumination ?

Answer 39

- change (core) beliefs in cognitive therapy & CBT - challenging these thoughts: what is the evidence - replacing these thoughts

Question 40

Why do people recover (spontaneously) from depression and why do they often relapse?

Answer 40

- latent processes: some processes have an inactive (latent) state but can me more easily activated by events in vulnerable individuals - diathesis stress model - cognitive vulnerability if youve been depressed before - cognitive reactivity - differential activation hypothesis - network model (its all related)

Question 41

what does the diathesis stress model say?

Answer 41

vulnerability (genetics) + stress = depression

Question 42

what is the differential activation hypothesis?

Answer 42

vulnerability does not reside in a dysfunctional attitude per se, but rather in the relative ease with which they are activated in the presence of mild negatvei mood ("dip")

Question 43

define appraisal

Answer 43

value assessment good for me vs bad for me)

Question 44

define schema

Answer 44

Mental structure of preconceived ideas about a particular aspect, including features of this concept and the relationships of these features. Holistic and associative. Often not conscious.

Question 45

what was Bowers view on depression?

Answer 45

- cognition is influenced by an interconnected network of nodes - Activation of single node partially activates adjacent nodes, resulting in spreading of activation and a processing advantage for related stimuli. - argued for persistence of biased cognition beyond the depressive episode

Question 46

What are some deficits observed in executive functioning in depression?

Answer 46

Deficits in updating, shifting, and inhibition are observed in executive functioning in depression.

Question 47

When are deficits in working memory observed in depression? why?

Answer 47

- when attention is not constrained by the task - opportunity to ruminate

Question 48

Are deficits in processing speed consistent in depression?

Answer 48

No, deficits in processing speed are inconsistent and task-dependent in depression.

Question 49

When are deficits in processing speed more likely to be observed in depressed individuals?

Answer 49

during current depressive episodes (rather than during periods of remission)

Question 50

what are the most common cognitive biases ppl w depression suffer from?

Answer 50

- biased self referential processing (rumination, more focus on self) - attentional biases (more attention to negative things) - interpretation bias (interpret ambiguous info as negative) - memory bias (more recall for negative info)

Question 51

What is the role of cognitive control in working memory?

Answer 51

manages entry and removal of info

Question 52

How do depressed individuals differ in cognitive control compared to healthy individuals?

Answer 52

struggle w inhibiting negative info from entering working memory and have difficulty updating or removing negative info once it's there.

Question 53

What tasks have been used to assess inhibition and updating in depressed individuals?

Answer 53

- inhibition: negative affective priming task - updating: , tasks like the affective Sternberg task and directed forgetting task

Question 54

What are the consequences of impaired cognitive control in depression?

Answer 54

Impaired cognitive control is associated with rumination and heightened reactivity to stress

Question 55

What is self-referential processing and how is it measured?

Answer 55

- reflects individuals' underlying negative cognitive schemas - measured using tasks like self-referential encoding task (SRET), where participants judge whether emotional adjectives describe them.

Question 56

How do depressed individuals differ in self-referential processing compared to healthy individuals? specifically

Answer 56

exhibit more negative self-referential biases, endorsing more negative and fewer positive adjectives, responding more quickly to negative adjectives, and recalling more negative adjectives.

Question 57

What are the consequences of negatively biased self-referential processing in depression?

Answer 57

more severe and longer-lasting course of depression

Question 58

What do studies show about self-referential processing in at-risk and formerly depressed individuals?

Answer 58

At-risk individuals and those with a history of depression also exhibit negative self-referential biases, which can be primed by negative mood states and predict episode relapse.

Question 59

How have researchers traditionally assessed attentional biases in depression?

Answer 59

using tasks like - emotional Stroop task: infers biases from response latencies - dot-probe task: measures reaction times to locate a dot behind emotional stimuli.

Question 60

What are the findings regarding attentional biases in depression using the emotional stroop task & dot probe tasks?

Answer 60

- emotional Stroop task: mixed results - dot-probe task: depressed individuals have difficulty disengaging from negative stimuli, especially when presented for longer durations or when using faces as stimuli.

Question 61

What is the limitation of the dot-probe task in assessing attentional biases?

Answer 61

lacks precision in differentiating initial orienting from subsequent disengagement, as it only assesses attention at one point in time on each trial.

Question 62

How have researchers attempted to overcome the limitation of the dot probe task?

Answer 62

Some turned to **eye-tracking technology**, which provides data on initial engagement and the speed of disengagement from stimuli.

Question 63

What are the implications of memory and attentional biases in depression for interventions?

Answer 63

Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) studies have shown promise in modifying attentional biases, particularly with multiple training sessions using dot-probe tasks, especially in individuals with less severe depressive symptoms or adolescents at risk for depression.

Question 64

What challenges remain in understanding and addressing attentional biases in depression?

Answer 64

- little evidence of transfer of training - little consistency in results

Question 65

Are negative interpretation biases exclusive to depressive episodes?

Answer 65

No, negative interpretation biases have been found in individuals at risk for depression and even in euthymic individuals with a history of depression, especially under high cognitive load.

Question 66

What challenges have researchers faced in studying interpretation biases?

Answer 66

reliance on reaction times as the dependent variable, which may not be sensitive to cognitive processing in depression

Question 67

How do interpretation biases relate to social interactions?

Answer 67

Difficulty accurately identifying subtle expressions of emotion may hinder effective interpersonal interactions, potentially contributing to deficits in social skills and interpersonal interactions observed in depression.

Question 68

What is the effectiveness of Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) in altering interpretation biases?

Answer 68

- positive interpretation biases can be trained through one or two sessions - but evidence of transfer of training to other tasks remains inconsistent.

Question 69

what are the memory biases in depression?

Answer 69

mood-congruent biases in memory, aka preference for recalling negative info over neutral / positive info

Question 70

How are memory biases typically assessed in research?

Answer 70

usually by researchers explicitly assessing memory, by overtly asking participants to recall previously encoded information.

Question 71

What is the nature of memory biases in depression regarding positive stimuli?

Answer 71

depressed individuals fail to show preferential encoding of positive information, unlike healthy controls who do exhibit this bias.

Question 72

Are memory biases limited to explicit memory in depression?

Answer 72

No, there is also evidence of implicit memory biases in depression, where depressed individuals exhibit preferential recall or recognition of negative versus positive information, even in the absence of conscious thought or intentional effort.

Question 73

What are cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and why are they important in understanding depression?

Answer 73

thoughts ppl have following an emotion-eliciting event to cope with or influence the resulting emotional response. Understanding these strategies is crucial for comprehending depression, as they are associated with depressive symptoms and cognitive biases.

Question 74

How is rumination defined, and what are its effects on depression?

Answer 74

Rumination is repetitively and passively thinking about negative mood states or their causes and consequences. It is associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms, predicts the onset of depressive episodes, and mediates sex differences in depression prevalence, with females more likely to ruminate than males.

Question 75

Is distraction considered an adaptive or maladaptive emotion regulation strategy in depression?

Answer 75

- adaptive - can reduce subjective and objective markers of distress in depressed individuals. - However, its benefits may be limited to the short term, and some researchers suggest it could be maladaptive in the long run due to its association with avoidance-related coping strategies and depression.

Question 76

What is reappraisal, and how does it relate to depression?

Answer 76

reinterpreting the meaning or interpretation of an emotion-eliciting situation to modify the emotional experience. Depressed individuals report using reappraisal less frequently than non-depressed individuals. However, when induced to reappraise in the laboratory, depressed participants show improvements in negative mood similar to healthy controls.

Question 77

How do cognitive emotion regulation strategies relate to cognitive biases?

Answer 77

Rumination is associated with difficulties in cognitive control, including inhibiting negative information and updating working memory. Reappraisal may be undermined by difficulty shifting and updating negative information in working memory. Distraction's association with cognitive biases is less clear but may be related to its interference with insight into problems and its potential to distract from negative stimuli.

Question 78

What role do cognitive emotion regulation strategies play in depression, according to recent research?

Answer 78

rumination contributes to onset and maintenance of depressive episodes, while reappraisal and, to a lesser extent, distraction, are more adaptive strategies that facilitate stress recovery. this shows importance of considering cognitive emotion regulation strategies in cognitive models of depression.

Question 79

What is the response styles theory of rumination, and how does it explain depression?

Answer 79

The response styles theory posits that certain response styles, particularly rumination, exacerbate depressed mood and negative cognition by passively and repetitively "recycling" negative thoughts. Rumination is associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms and increased onset of depressive episodes, and sex differences in depression prevalence are attributed to differences in rumination

Question 80

How do recent models of depression incorporate deficits in cognitive control?

Answer 80

Recent models, such as Joormann's model, suggest that deficits in cognitive control are central to both cognitive biases and cognitive emotion regulation strategies in depression.

Question 81

What is the current remission rate for individuals treated for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)?

Answer 81

fewer than 40% of individuals treated for MDD achieve symptom remission with initial treatment.

Question 82

How does Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) affect cognitive biases and emotion regulation strategies in depression?

Answer 82

CBT associated w - improved cognitive biases and emotion regulation strategies in depression - reduced attentional and interpretation and control biases - increased use of reappraisal, which mediates its effect on symptoms, and it also reduces rumination.

Question 83

What are some alternative or extended therapeutic approaches to CBT for depression, and what evidence supports their efficacy?

Answer 83

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) combines psychoeducation about depression, mindfulness meditation practices, and cognitive-behavioral strategies. Several randomized trials have demonstrated reductions in depressive symptoms and relapse rates following MBCT. Emotion regulation therapy (ERT) integrates components of CBT, acceptance, mindfulness, and experiential, emotion-focused techniques, showing efficacy in improving symptom severity, quality of life, and cognitive reappraisal.

Question 84

How have researchers adapted CBT to target specific cognitive processes related to depression?

Answer 84

- developed targeted interventions - like rumination-focused CBT - these interventions have shown significant reductions in symptoms and remission rates, mediated by reductions in rumination.

Question 85

how would you test if an emotional/cognitive process is causally related to an anxious/depressed behaviour?

Answer 85

do an experiment where you induce the process in half of the participants and not the other half and then test them on the behaviour