Beck's negative triad

• Beck (1967) took a cognitive approach to explaining why some people are more vulnerable to depression than others. In particular it is a person's cognitions that create this vulnerability (i.e the way they think)

  • Beck suggested three parts to this cognitive vulnerability
• Negative triad:

  Beck proposed that there are three kinds of negative thinking that contribute to becoming depressed:

  • Negative views of the world, the future and the self
  • Such negative views lead a person to interpret their experiences in a negative way and so make them more vulnerable to depression
• Faulty information processing - When depressed people attend to the negative aspects of a situation and ignore positives
• Negative self-schema:

  A schema is a 'package' of ideas and information developed through experience

  • They act as a mental framework for the interpretation of sensory information
• Negative self-schema:

  A self-schema is the package of information people have about themselves

  • People use schema to interpret the world, so if a person has a negative self-schema they interpret all information about themselves in a negative way
• Most of the negative thoughts experienced by depressed individuals depend on cognitive schemas

  Cognitive schema - A well organised cognitive structure of stored information and memories that form the basis of core beliefs about self and others
• The negative triad: Three kinds of negative thinking that contribute to becoming depressed

  • Negative view of the world
  • Negative view of the self
  • Negative view of the future
• Depressed individuals regard themselves as helpless, worthless and inadequate (catastrophic words)
• Negative schemas:

  Ineptness schemas - Make people with depression expect to fail
• Negative schemas:

  Self-blame schemas - Make people with depression feel responsible for all misfortunes
• Negative schemas:

  Negative self-evaluation schemas - Constantly remind people with depression of their worthlessness
• Cognitive biases:

  • The negative schemas fuel and are fueled by cognitive biases, causing individuals to misperceive reality
• Cognitive biases:

  Arbitrary inferences - Conclusions drawn in the absence of sufficient evidence

  • Eg: Man concluding he is worthless because it is raining on the day he planned an outdoor party
• Cognitive biases:

  Selective abstraction - Conclusions drawn from one part of a situation

  • Eg: Worker feels worthless when a product doesn't work, even though several people have made it
• Cognitive biases:

  Overgeneralisation - Conclusions drawn on the basis of a single event

  • Eg: A student concluding they are worthless based on poor performance on one test
• Cognitive biases:

  Maximisation and minimisation - Exaggerations in evaluation of performance

  • Eg: A man believing his car is ruined due to one small scratch (maximisation) or a woman believing herself worthless despite many praises (minimisation)