Hopelessness theory of Depression
Abramson
Abramson reformulated Seligman's ‘learned helplessness theory’ as it was full of faults. He
believed that not everyone gives up after unpleasant situations that they can’t control.
Abramson argued that when people experience failure, they will always attribute their
failure to a cause. People can blame/attribute their failure in 6 different ways.........
Task 1- fill in the gaps
When people make internal attributions they……………. themselves for their failure,
however when people make external attributions they blame……………... A person
can also make stable attributions which is when they believe that their failures will not
change over……….... Unstable attributions involve the person acknowledging that they
may have failed but this will change in the…………. Finally a person can make a global
attributions; this is where a person ……………..the failure to everything else in their
lives, compared to specific attributions where a person believes that they are only
failing in ………area of their lives. A maladaptive attribution style (that leads to
depression) would involve making internal, stable and …………. attributions.
Words: global, future, other people, generalises, time, one, blame
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Task 2- Choose and write examples of attributions about the negative event that avoids
feelings of hopelessness and depression.
Negative event
You fail your FSA 3
psychology exam
Adaptive
attributions
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Examples of each
attribution
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Adaptive
behaviours:
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Task 3- Choose and write examples of attributions about the negative event that leads to
feelings of hopelessness and depression.
Negative event
Your
boyfriend/girlfriend
breaks up with you
Maladaptive
attributions
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Examples of each
attribution
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Maladaptive
behaviours that
lead to
depression:
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Beck’s cognitive triad
Beck was struck by the negative thinking shown by depressed people. He believed depression is the
result of this negative thinking. He believes that when a person has negative views about themselves,
their future and the world they become depressed (cognitive traid).
Hundreds of studies have shown that depressed patients think more negatively than non-depressed patients
For example,
However, we should be cautious when using these studies as evidence because…….
Further support for cognitive explanations comes from the high degree of success that has been
achieved with treating patients with depression with CBT. How does the effectiveness of CBT support
cognitive explanations of depression?
Write a PEEEL paragraph on a cognitive explanation of depression (either Abramsons or Becks theory)