PSYCH105 Introductory Psychology

The essay aims to provide a thorough explanation of the psychological topic – depression – from the three philosophical perspectives namely behavioral, cognitive and social. Many people wrongly intercept depression as being a mental condition and those suffering from it being abnormal. Explaining this psychological issue from the three perspectives would help in understanding the topic without any stigma attached to it. Several people suffer from depression irrespective of class, race or culture. Depression, in its general sense, refers to the feelings of sorrow, hopelessness or loneliness.

Behavioral perspective

The behavioral theorists have laid stress on the role played by maladaptive actions for its onset and persistence. The behavioral theories evolve from the work relating to the main beliefs of learning and conditioning. B. F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov are credited with the creation of behavioral psychology (Dowrick & Frances, 2013). These two theorists had done extensive research on classical conditioning and operant conditioning. As per the classical and operant conditioning principle, reactions of individuals to their environment and the way they develop adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies determine depression. While operant conditioning involves rewards and incentives given to the learners, classical conditioning includes motivation as the main driver of behavior (Dowrick & Frances, 2013).

Cognitive perspective

Cognitive theorists lay stress on the beliefs of individuals rather than their behaviors. According to them, depression occurs in individuals due to “systematic negative bias in thinking processes” (Beck & Haigh, 2014). The cognitive approach further holds that behavioral and emotional symptoms of depression also result from cognitive deformity. In simple words, patients with depression think differently from normal people as per clinical conditions

. Aaron Beck was a major cognitive theorist who believed that depression was a result of negative automatic thinking, negative schemas about the self and faulty processing of information (Beck & Haigh, 2014). Negative thinking about the self, the world and the future is a typical condition of a depressed person. The negative self-schema refers to the depressed individual’s belief that is mostly pessimistic. Due to this negative self-schema, people often make logical errors and become obsessed with only one aspect of a situation while ignoring other equally significant factors.

Social perspective

The social theorists associate depression with the disturbances in their social environment. The main factors that contribute to depression, according to social theorists include family, socialization, culture and gender. According to the sociologists, people become depressed due to the ambiance they experience in their family; it might be because of a spouse, parents or any other family members. (Hames, Hagan & Joiner, 2013).  The sociologists view depression as a reason of imbalance in the social environment of the individual. Lack of socialization has also been a major contributor to depression, as per the social theorists. Studies in the cultural effects of depression have shown that depression is defined and perceived differently in different cultures.

While most people associate depression with the Western way of living, several studies have proved otherwise. To give an instance, Indians associate any distress disorder with depression and Japanese on the other hand consider it as unacceptable. Gender too has a role to play in depression, believe the social theorists. Gender roles that are preset in certain cultures could give way to depression as the death of a spouse of any gender would ultimately make the opposite gender depressed as he or she will have to perform both roles.

Analyzing the three perspectives

As evident from the above discussion, the three different perspectives explain depression in three different ways. Although the primary nature of depression is similar in the three perspectives, the causes and reasons are contradictory. As Nesi and Prinstein (2015) observes, the main difference between social and behavioral theory explaining depression is the focus on human behavior and social interaction. In the contemporary age, explain the authors, the influence of social media has made depression associated with both social and behavior theory.

In such cases, the behavior of an individual to engage more in the virtual world causes social isolation and consequently depression. Feinstein et al. (2013) on the other hand, find contradictions in the explanation of depression from the cognitive and behavioral perspective. They state that while the behaviorists emphasized lack of motivation, rewards and incentives as the chief cause of depression, cognitive theorists associated depression with the thinking process.

Slavich and Irwin (2014) further distinguish the three perspectives on depression stating that these theories were proposed at different eras. Those eras were marked by the prevalence of social, cognitive and behavioral studies of humans. While on the other hand, Hayes et al. (2013) remark that with time, these theories became interrelated, which could be evident from the treatments such as the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that integrates the two theories.

Personal reflection

After analyzing all the perspectives including the differences between them, it is clearly visible to me that depression is best defined as per the condition of the affected individual. In my observation, I have found that depression could occur from any source, whether social, cognitive or behavioral. Therefore, to state that depression is a result of lack of motivation or rewards, or presence of negative thought about the self or lack of social interaction would be wrong. In my view, depression should be seen from all the three perspectives combined and not separately. In addition, I must state that the studies and researches performed on the topic have considered all aspects of depression but these have not provided any interrelationship between the different perspectives. I feel that there must be a research on the influence of all the factors – social, cognitive and behavioral – to depression.  

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be stated that the three perspectives chosen for the essay have broadly defined depression. Behavioral perspective defines depression as the result of classical and operant conditioning where the lack of motivation or rewards and incentives cause depression. Cognitive perspective holds the view that depression is the outcome of negative thinking about the self, the world and the future. Depression, from social perspective is defined as a condition that arises from the negative ambiance experienced in family and from absence of socialization. Cultural differences have also resulted in the different perceptions of depression. The essay has also provided a personal reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the three perspectives explaining depression and what could have been done differently.

References:

Beck, A. T., & Haigh, E. A. (2014). Advances in cognitive theory and therapy: the generic cognitive model. Annual review of clinical psychology, 10, 1-24.

Dowrick, C., & Frances, A. (2013). Medicalising unhappiness: new classification of depression risks more patients being put on drug treatment from which they will not benefit. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 347.

Feinstein, B. A., Hershenberg, R., Bhatia, V., Latack, J. A., Meuwly, N., & Davila, J. (2013). Negative social comparison on Facebook and depressive symptoms: Rumination as a mechanism. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2(3), 161.

Hames, J. L., Hagan, C. R., & Joiner, T. E. (2013). Interpersonal processes in depression. Annual review of clinical psychology, 9, 355-377.

Hayes, S. C., Levin, M. E., Plumb-Vilardaga, J., Villatte, J. L., & Pistorello, J. (2013). Acceptance and commitment therapy and contextual behavioral science: Examining the progress of a distinctive model of behavioral and cognitive therapy. Behavior therapy, 44(2), 180-198.

Nesi, J., & Prinstein, M. J. (2015). Using social media for social comparison and feedback-seeking: gender and popularity moderate associations with depressive symptoms. Journal of abnormal child psychology, 43(8), 1427-1438.

Slavich, G. M., & Irwin, M. R. (2014). From stress to inflammation and major depressive disorder: a social signal transduction theory of depression. Psychological bulletin, 140(3), 774.