The cognitive approach to explaining depression - TBC

Question 1

What is the cognitive explanation of depression?

Answer 1

The cognitive approach emphasises how thinking shapes our behaviour.
In terms of understanding abnormality, cognitive psychologists are most concerned with how irrational thinking leads to a mental disorder.

Question 2

What are the two cognitive explanations for depression?

Answer 2

Beck’s cognitive theory (the negative triad)
Ellis’ ABC model

Question 3

What is Beck’s cognitive theory?

Answer 3

Aaron Beck (1967) suggested a cognitive approach to explaining why some people are more vulnerable to depression than others. He believed that it was a person’s cognitions that creates this vulnerability, i.e. the way they think.

Question 4

What is the three parts of the cognitive vulnerability?

Answer 4

Faulty information processing
Negative self-schema
The negative triad

Question 5

What some examples of faulty information processes that people who are depressed tend to experience?

Answer 5

Polarised thinking: Seeing everything as black and white
Overgeneralisation: Applying one experience to all experiences, including those in the future
Tyranny: ‘should’, ‘ought’ and ‘must’
Catastrophising: Making a mountain out of a molehill

Question 6

What is a scgema?

Answer 6

A schema is a ‘package’ of ideas and information developed through experience. They act as a mental framework for the interpretation of sensory information.

Question 7

What is a self-schema?

Answer 7

The package of information people have about themselves.

Question 8

What is a negative self-schema?

Answer 8

They interpret all information about themselves in a negative way.
Beck sees negative self-schemas as the origin of depressive thoughts.

Question 9

What does Beck suggest about the negative triad?

Answer 9

Beck suggested that a person develops a dysfunctional view of themselves because of three types of negative thinking that occur automatically, regardless of the reality of what is happening at the time.
These three elements are called the negative triad.

Question 10

What are the parts in the negative triad?

Answer 10

Negative view about the world
Negative view about the self
Negative view about the future

Question 11

What did Ellis suggest?

Answer 11

He proposed that good mental health is the result of rational thinking.
To Ellis, conditions like anxiety and depression result from irrational thoughts. These thoughts may not be illogical or unrealistic, but involve anything that interferes with us being happy and free of pain.
Ellis used the ABC model to explain how irrational thoughts affect our behaviour and emotional state.

Question 12

What do irrational thoughts come from?

Answer 12

musturbatory thinking

Question 13

What does musturbatory thinking?

Answer 13

thinking that certain assumptions or ideas must be true in order for an individual to be happy. In other words, it is the belief that we must always succeed or achieve perfection. An individual who holds such assumptions, according to Ellis, will at least be disappointed, at worst become
depressed.

Question 14

What are the two other types of irrational thinking?

Answer 14

‘I can’t-stand-it-itis’
‘Utopianism’

Question 15

What does ‘I can’t-stand-it-itis’ mean?

Answer 15

The belief that it is a major disaster when something does not go smoothly.

Question 16

What does ‘utopianism’ mean?

Answer 16

The belief that life is always meant to be fair.

Question 17

What is the ABC model?

Answer 17

Ellis proposed that depression occurs when an activating event (A) triggers an irrational belief (B) which produces a consequence (C). The key to this process is the irrational belief.

Question 18

AO3: Support for the role of irrational thinking.

Answer 18

The view that depression is linked to irrational thinking is supported by research.
Hammen and Krantz (1976) found that depressed participants made more errors in logic when asked to interpret written material than did non-depressed participants. Bates et al. (1999) found that depressed participants who were given negative automatic-thought statements became more and more depressed.
this research supports the view that negative thinking leads to depression, although this link does not mean that negative thoughts cause depression. Instead, negative thinking may develop because of their depression.