Depression: A cognitive perspective

Abstract

Cognitive science has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of the onset, maintenance, and treatment of depression. Research conducted over the last 50 years supports the proposition that depression and risk for depression are characterized by the operation of negative biases, and often by a lack of positive biases, in self-referential processing, interpretation, attention, and memory, as well as the use of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. There is also evidence to suggest that deficits in cognitive control over mood-congruent material underlie these cognitive processes. Specifically, research indicates that difficulty inhibiting and disengaging from negative material in working memory: (1) increases the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., rumination), decreases the use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., reappraisal), and potentially impedes flexible selection and implementation of emotion regulation strategies; (2) is associated with negative biases in attention; and (3) contributes to negative biases in long-term memory. Moreover, studies suggest that these cognitive processes exacerbate and sustain the negative mood that typifies depressive episodes. In this review, we present evidence in support of this conceptualization of depression and discuss implications of research findings for theory and practice. Finally, we advance directions for future research.

Keywords: Cognition; Cognitive control; Depression; Emotion regulation strategies; Information-processing biases.

Fig. 1.

Depression is associated with (1) cognitive biases in self-referential processing, attention, interpretation, and memory; (2) the use of maladaptive versus adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies; and (3) deficits in cognitive control over mood-congruent material, which in turn, contributes to cognitive biases and the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, all of which exacerbate and sustain symptoms of depression.