1. Operant conditioning
Lewinsohn (1974) offered a behavioural explanation for depression based on operant conditioning. He argued
that loss or any tragic incident in a person life (for example the break-up of an intimate relationship) results in a
reduction in the amount of positive reinforcement that is experienced. Why? Explain
Next the individual may withdraw from their social environment and then once they do this people begin to
notice and so offer sympathy and attention. This attention from family and friends will positively reinforce the
very behaviours that are maladaptive (weeping, complaining, criticising themselves, and talking about suicide) thus
increasing the symptoms occurrence.
However, eventually people find it tiresome to be around someone who refuses to cheer up. The depressed
person’s behaviour eventually alienates even close associates, producing a further reduction in positive
reinforcement and increasing the individual’s social isolation and unhappiness thus maintaining the depressive
symptoms. Those with poor social skills in the first place are more prone to this and more likely to become
depressed.
The whole scenario becomes a vicious cycle.
Exam questions
Briefly discuss one explanation for mood disorders
Briefly discuss a behavioural explanation for mood disorders
Briefly discuss one explanation for unipolar depression
(4 marks)
2. Learned Helplessness
Another influential behavioural theory for depression is that of learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975). This
states that uncontrollable events in a person’s life can lead to depression. Frequent experiences of not being in
control can lead a person to think that they cannot control anything in their life. This then leads to feelings of
helplessness resulting in depression. Learned helplessness results in the following:

Thinking that you cannot control the rewards and punishments in your life

Thinking that you are responsible for this state of affairs
Seligman (1975) developed this theory of learned helplessness with dogs:
Seligman (1974) used classical conditioning techniques to show how learned helplessness develops in dogs. In
the training period, dogs were placed in an apparatus where they could not escape painful electric shocks. At first
the dogs tried to escape the shocks, but without success. After a while, the dogs gave up and no longer tried to
escape the shocks. Later the dogs were placed in an apparatus where they could escape the shocks by jumping to
the other side of a box. Dogs that had previously been unable to escape the shocks did not attempt to escape
when they later could – they had become helpless. Having no control over unpleasant events leads to learned
helplessness. Seligman likened this to how people with depression respond in their lives.
Miller and Seligman (1975) showed that when people were exposed to negative events over which they had
no control, they scored high on a depressive mood questionnaire. Wu et al (1999) conducted learned
helplessness experiments on rats. They found that levels of serotonin and norepinephrine were lower than in rats
that had not gone through a learned helplessness schedule.
Exam question
Make up three exam questions that could possibly come up which would be based on Learned Helplessness
3. Another explanation that supports how individuals may develop depression as a result of
factors in their environment can be seen in the study below:
Swann et al (1992) conducted a study to show that depressed people choose to be with others who view them
negatively. College students who were depressed and college students who were not depressed were allowed to
select a partner to interact with. The students were informed that one potential partner viewed them negatively,
another positively and another in a neutral way. Depressed college students showed greater desire to be with a
partner where that partner viewed them negatively. By contrast, students who were not depressed preferred to
interact with a partner who viewed them positively.
Why then do people with depression look to be with people who have depression?
There are 3-4 studies mentioned in the notes above – can you think of any actual realistic evaluations of those
studies that could be used in an essay for the behavioural explanations of depression?
Exam question
Describe one study in which a behavioural explanation for depression has been investigated. Indicate why the study
was conducted, the method used, results obtained and conclusion drawn. (5 marks)
Nb don’t forget to come up with your own evaluation for that 5th mark!
General evaluations of the behavioural explanation
Read the evaluative comments below then in your own words explain why it is an evaluation in support or against
the belief that the behavioural explanation is the most considerable explanation of depression…
Observational studies of people with depression have
shown that they receive less positive reinforcement
than other family members (Lewinsohn et al 1973)
Studies such as that by Swann et al proves that ….
The success of behavioural therapies including token
economy and social skills training (which encourages a
client to improve their positive behaviours which in
turn are then rewarded - positive reinforcement)
supports the idea that lack of positive reinforcement
must be the cause. Explain
Lack of social reinforcement, in particular, does seem
to be very important. Other people do tend to avoid,
or be angry, with depressives and they do have fewer
friends. Explain
It may be that lack of reinforcement is a result of
depression, rather than its cause. Explain
Although there may initially be secondary gain for the
depressed person from concerned friends and carers,
the depression often continues long after others have
given up showing concern. Explain…
Behavioural explanations such as that provided by
Seligman have been based on studies with animals/dogs.
It could be argued that humans are qualitatively
different from animals and so we should not generalise
these studies to humans. Explain
Those explanations provided by Lewinsohn and
Seligman require an understanding of cognitive
processes – a problem with the behaviourist view then
is that it cannot be used as a pure explanation
independently.
However the learned helplessness
theory was reformulated to ‘attribution helplessness’ as
a way of accounting for cognitive factors. Look up…
Other explanations such as _____________ may be a
better explanation of depression because?....
Other evaluations
Seligman’s work used animals and although he did undertake work with human participants, further
studies have been unable to replicate his findings. After all – humans use the saying ‘if at first you
don’t succeed try, try, try again’.
There are also obvious ethical issues involved with these kinds of studies – where both animals and
humans have been subjected to stressful situations. Psychological harm must be avoided at all
costs – however sometimes the ends justify the means and if they gave consent then we may
overlook this problem.
Whilst learned helplessness explains how life events cause unipolar depression, it does not really
provide an explanation for the mood swings seen in bipolar disorder – i.e. the delusional and
hallucinatory behaviours.