2.  Psychological disturbances came from irrational and illogical thinking.  Irrational beliefs such as “I must get 100% in every test” etc and “I didn’t get top marks in the last test” can lead to self-defeating conclusions “I’m stupid”

3.  Cognitive distortions and biases in information processing  Schema  Overgeneralization on negative event  Non- logical  Dichotomous thinking- black and white, tend to recall negative consequences  Negative cognitive schemas tend to activate by stressful events

4.  Alloy et al  6 years of observation on a group of Americans in their 20s  Positive thinking group, negative thinking group  1% in positive developed depression, 17% in negative group

5.  Does depressive thinking patterns cause depression or are theses behaviors caused by depression?  If negative cognitive style causes depression then by replacing that with positive in theory could improve the situation of depressed patients.

6. Sociocultural Level of Analysis

7.  Did a study on social origins of Depression in women  Found that 29 out of 32 women who became depressed had experienced a severe life event.  But 78 percent who did experience a severe life event did not become depressed.  They discovered that life events that resembled previous life experiences were more likely to cause depression

8.  Based on the previous study, brown suggested this model of depression that was based on a number of factors that could increase the likelihood of depression  Such factors are: Lacking employment away from home, absence of social support, having several young children at home, loss of mother at an early age, and history of child abuse.  This model/study is similar to the widely accepted diathesis-stress model which is an interactionist approach to explaining psychological disorders – it claims that depression may be the result of a hereditary predisposition with precipitating events in the environment.

9. Research done by Prince (1968) claimed that there was no depression in Africa, and various regions of Asia. But he found that rates of reported depression rose with westernization in former colonial countries. However, modern researchers argue that depression in non-modernized settings have different ways of expressing the disorder, which may escape the attention of a person from another culture. Kleinman (1982) showed that somatization is a typical channel of expression in China and that the Chinese rarely complain of feeling sad or depressed. They use their bodies as a medium of their distress.

10.  “Women are two to three times more likely to become clinically depressed than men” (Williams and Hargreaves 1995)  Women are more emotional and vulnerable to being upset because of hormonal fluctuations  However, this may be due to the fact that women are more open about seeking help than men  Many researchers argue that the reason for this is rooted in social causes

11. Aim: To investigate the social origins of depression by comparing the relationship between social factors and depression in women. Participants: 458 women in London (aged between 18-65 years). Among these women, there are those who have received hospital treatment for depression and those who visited their doctor seeking help for depression.

12.  82% of those who were depressed had experienced at least one severe life event as compared to 33% of the people were non-depressed  Pronounced social class effect: In the past year, 23% of working-class women became depressed as compared to 3% of middle-class women.  Among the working class, women with young children were at higher risk of being depressed.  There was a link between marital status and the risk of being depressed across all social classes. Eg. Women who were widowed and divorced had high rates of depression  People differ in their vulnerability to depressedion (lack of confidence, early loss of parents, unemployment)  The presence of a partner was a protective factor against depression

13. Strengths -Large group of women -Wide range of age Limitations -Participants were only women, cannot be generalized to men -Only conducted in London, Camberwell. (Treatment for depression may be higher than in a collectivist society, people are more likely to say they are depressed) -There was no consideration of the depressed women’s previous life history (such as childhood stress)

14.  Social stress plays a role in many depressive episodes.  Social factors may affect an individual’s vulnerability to depression.  Social support can offer protection against the effects of potentially stressful events  However, other factors such as cognitive and biological also contribute to an individual’s risk of being depressed -Cognitive: how an individual evaluates their life events -Biological: childhood stress might’ve affected the brain’s stress circuits