Negative thinking in depression: Cause, effect, or reciprocal relationship?

Abstract

There is evidence consistent with the suggestion of the cognitive model of depression that certain negative cognitions can produce and maintain the state of depression. There is also good evidence that depressed mood affects the relative accessibility of positive and negative cognitions. Thus, negative cognitions appear to produce depression, and, conversely, depression increases the probability of just those cognitions which will cause further depression. This reciprocal relationship between depression and cognition may form the basis of a vicious cycle which will perpetuate and intensify depression. Bower has proposed an associative network theory to account for the effects of mood on memory. The implications of this model for cognitive models of depression are developed. It is suggested that an important dimension of cognitive vulnerability to depression may be the nature of the cognitions that become accessible in depressed mood. © 1983.