Beck's negative triad

• cognitive psychologists suggest human behaviour is influenced by schemas which are organised systems of knowledge we use to understand the world
• traumatic and negative events in life may lead to negative automatic thoughts e.g. failure at school may lead to schema of i will always be unsuccessful
• these events might be parental or peer rejection criticism
• these schemas are then triggered when person encounters similar situation to original
• beck thought negative schemas lead to errors in logic in that they tend to draw illogical conclusions when they evaluate themselves. Drawing a sweeping conclusion on the basis of a singular event. beck called these errors cognitive distortions or biases
• beck suggested these biases and schemas maintain the negative triad. this is made up of negative views of self, world and future.