beck's cognitive theory

• beck's cognitive theory

  • aaron beck developed a cognitive explanation for mental disorders that focussed specifically on depression
  • beck believed that depressed people feel the way they do because their thinking is biased towards the negative interpretations of the world.
• info from real world = perception = thinking = emotion and/or behaviour = real world behaviour
• what is a schema?

  cognitive framework of the mind
• how can biases occur with schemas?

  schemas lead us to pay attention to information that fits into our current schemas

  depression results from systematic negative bias in thinking process
• negative self-schema

  • depressed people may have acquired a negative self-schema during childhood
  • maybe from early rejection or criticism
  • it is then activated when the person encounters a new (but similar) situation
  • these leads to cognitive bias - over generalising, sweeping thoughts about a person's self-worth based on one small piece og negative feedback
• negative triad - 'the triad of impairments'

  negative schemas and cognitive biases can lead to (and help maintain) what Beck refers to as the negative triad

  • a pessimistic and irrational view of three key elements in a person's belief system
• negative triad diagram

  1. negative view of the world

  • creates impression there is no hope anywhere
  • ''the world is a cold, hard place''

  2. negative view of the future

  • creates the idea that the situation will not improve
  • ''things will never improve. the future is bleak''

  3. negative view of the self (self-schema)

  • this confirms the existing emotions of low self-esteem
  • ''i am hopeless. i am a failure''
• the negative triad leads to biased and irrational thinking patterns, and error in thinking such as:

  • absolutism = thinking is all or nothing/black and white
  • over-generalisation = moving from a single instance to conclusion
  • selective thinking = focussing only on negative details/events, ignoring positive
  • arbitrary inferences = drawing negative conclusions from insufficient evidence
  • personalising = taking responsibility and blame for all unpleasant things that happen.
• a negative view of the world creates no hope

  the negative view of the future creates no hope for change, no point in trying

  a negative view of the self creates low self esteem, leads to someone ''giving up''