negative view of self, world, and future lead to depression
negative schema
depressed people acquire a negative schema during childhood, could be caused by parental/peer rejection. These negative schemas are activated in a new situation.
Mustabatory thinking
involves thinking that certain ideas or assumptions must be true in order for an individual to be happy
strengths
-Hammen and Krantz (1976) supports the view that depression is linked to irrational thinking as depressed patients made errors in logic
-cognitive explanations here have both been usefully applied in CBT which is one of the best treatment for depression
weaknesses
-cognitive theories depend on the assumption that the person with depressive thoughts is irrational however it could be depression is a reasonable response to the challenges they face e.g poverty, racism
-the existence of alternative approaches and therapies suggest that depression cant be explained by cognitive factors alone
