Psychological Explanation

Question 1

What’s Becks cognitive theory?

Answer 1

Depressive symptoms are caused by negative thoughts linked to dysfunctional core beliefs. The more negative thought=worse symptoms

Question 2

What is the cognitive Triad

Answer 2

Negative beliefs abt world

Negative beliefs abt self

Negative beliefs abt future

Question 3

Can faulty thinking patterns increase risk of depression?

Answer 3

Yes

Question 4

What are the faulty thinking patterns?

Answer 4

Dichotomous thinking (all or nothing’): classifying events into two categories with no middle ground, such as success and failure. Sometimes called ‘black or white’ thinking.
» Arbitrary inferences: drawing negative conclusions in the absence of sufficient supporting evidence. This can lead people to make assumptions about what other people think about them (mind reading) and how things will turn out in the future (‘fortune telling’). Also linked to over-generalising - for example, not being offered a job leads the person to think they are unemployable.
»
Catastrophising: something relatively insignificant triggers a flood of negative thoughts, resulting in overwhelming anxiety about worst-case scenarios. For example, you find a freckle you have not noticed before and end up terrified you have skin cancer, sick with worry about death and leaving behind family members with no-one to look after them.
Personalisation: taking the blame for negative outcomes and failing to acknowledge situational factors, such as ‘I was made redundant because I am useless’, not due to the company’s financial difficulties.

Question 5

How do these negative beliefs come to be?

Answer 5

Develop in childhood through rejection from important people or bullying

Question 6

What’s learned helplessness/attributional style?

Answer 6

Proposes that depression in humans may be a learned response to a negative experience.
Learn to be helpless thinking they have no control

Question 7

What the evaluation?

Answer 7

Str:
attributional style explanation supported by evidence.seligman
Wk:
Depressive attributional style might not be the cause of depression. Impossible to say finding of are correlational in seligman

Question 8

What are the issues and debates?

Answer 8

Determinism vs free will:
Cognitive explanation suggest depressive symptoms are inevitable with people with faulty thinking strategies.
Free will suggest we have the power to override it even if we had negative experiences

Question 9

What are the three basic musts?

Answer 9

People must approve everything I do
Other people must treat me well
I must get what I want and not what I don’t want