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”
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
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
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.
Sociocultural Level of Analysis
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
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.
• 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.
“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
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.
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
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)
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