COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THEORIES

Behavioural approach Assumes that all behaviour is LEARNED.

Learned helplessness Experience of failure leads to giving up. No attempt is made to avoid failure. First discovered in dogs (Seligman, 1974) After being placed in an inescapable and unavoidable stressful situation where they received electric shocks, the dogs failed to initiate escape even when it was possible. Reasonable to generalise this to humans Evidence shows that people behave in a similar way.

Study with humans Maier and Seligman (1976) People who had been subjected to inescapable noise or shocks failed to take the opportunity to escape from similar situations later on even though escape was possible.

Evaluation Learned helplessness (like other behavioural theories) does not take cognitive processes (thinking) into account.

The Hopelessness theory Abramson et al This introduces a cognitive factor When people experience failure they usually attribute the failure to a cause. This can be: Internal/external Stable/unstable Global/specific

Attributional style If this is maladaptive it can lead to negative feelings of hopelessness which can turn into depression. Example I failed my exam because I am no good at Psychology (internal) I don’t think I will ever (stable) be any good at much at all (global)

Hopelessness More common in women Women are more likely to ruminate (think about what is making them feel sad) than men. Rumination is a predictor of depression (Nolen- Hoeksema and Corte, 2004)

Evaluation Most of Seligman’s studies used college students rather than clinically depressed patients. It is not clear whether hopelessness is a cause of depression or a side effect of depression. It is also likely that a depressed person will have negative attributional style. The relationship between attributional style and depression was not observed in children by Nolen- Hoeksema et al. (1992) although the same children seemed to show a connection as they grew older.

Supporting evidence Seligman devised the ‘Attributional Style Questionnaire’ (1974) Students (using this questionnaire) with poor results were depressed after exams. Two days later, those who made unstable and specific attributions about their failure (e.g. I did badly on that particular exam because I’m not very good at this particular subject right now) had got over it. Those who made stable and global attributions remained depressed.

Beck’s cognitive theory of depression Beck (1967) suggested that depression is the result of negative thinking and catastrophising (exaggerating the importance of negative events) which he called ‘cognitive errors’.

Cognitive triad 3 main components to depression 1. negative view of self as worthless and helpless 2. negative view of the world and of one’s experience of it (full of obstacles) 3. negative view about the future

The 3 components interact This leads to impaired: Perception, Memory, Problem-solving ability The person becomes completely obsessed with negative thoughts These are not consciously intended

The cognitive triad Negative views about the world e.g. ‘Everyone is against me because I’m worthless’. Negative views about the future, e.g. ‘I’ll never be any good at anything’. Negative views about the self e.g. ‘I’m worthless and inadequate

Negative self-schema In addition to the cognitive triad of negative cognitions, Beck believed that depression-prone individuals develop a ‘negative self-schema’. This is a set of beliefs and expectations about themselves that are essentially self-blaming and pessimistic. These may be acquired in childhood as a result of traumatic events and/or negative treatment. When a situation is encountered that resembles the childhood one, the negative schema is triggered.

Early experiences might include Death of a parent of sibling Parental rejection, criticism, overprotection, neglect or abuse Being bullied at school or excluded from a peer group.

Cognitive distortions People with negative self- schemas become prone to making logical errors in their thinking and they tend to focus selectively on certain aspects of a situation while ignoring equally relevant (more positive) information. Beck referred to these errors as ‘cognitive distortions’.

Examples of cognitive distortions Arbitrary inferenceDrawing conclusions on the basis of insufficient or irrelevant evidence: e.g. Feeling worthless because a football match is ‘rained off’. Selective abstractionFocus on a single aspect of a situation while ignoring others: feeling bad about failing to score a goal even though you played really well. OvergeneralisationMaking a sweeping conclusion on the basis of a single event: You think that you should give up football because of one bad match. Magnification and minimisation Exaggerating or underplaying the significance of an event: Mistakes are blown up out of proportion while successes are overlooked. PersonalisationAttributing the negative feelings of others to oneself: the manager walks in with an angry face and you are sure he is angry with you.

In support of cognitive explanations Therapy has been successful Analyses of statistics found that 80% adults benefited from cognitive therapy. More successful than drug therapy Lower relapse rate This suggests that negative thinking may be the cause of depression as once people are helped to think more positively their symptoms of depression are relieved and may not return.

Research evidence A number of studies have found evidence for more negative thinking in depressed people. Evans et al. (2205) found that the more maladaptive attitudes and beliefs held the more severe the depression. However, most studies are correlational and can’t establish cause and effect because Negative thinking could lead to depression but Depression could lead to negative thinking.

Segal and Ingram (1994) Compared depressed and non-depressed people and found no difference in vulnerability measures, i.e. In negative thinking. They concluded that depression leads to negative thinking rather than the other way round.

Furthermore Wu 1999 found that negative events led to lower norepinephrine and serotonin levels in rats. How would you comment on this? What does it suggest and what are the limitations of it as an explanation?

Diathesis-stress model Underlying predispositions such as genetic vulnerability, childhood loss or patterns of negative thinking, can give rise to depressive symptoms if activated by environmental stressors.