Depression is a severe mental health disorder that can substantially affect the life of diagnosed persons. It can be defined as a condition that impairs the patients’ cognition, the ability to control emotions, motivation, memory, and motoric function (Dean & Keshavan, 2017). Several perspectives can be applied to describe the disease and understand its nature. Thus, this post will discuss biological and social-cognitive perspectives on depression and the difference between these approaches.
The social-cognitive perspective states that the disorder’s development is influenced by the events in the patient’s life and their way of thinking. Specifically, the theory claims that human behavior is influenced and shaped by an individual’s expectations, thoughts, beliefs, and social environment (Bennett et al., 2018). The author of the theory, Albert Bandura, pointed out that depressed people tend to believe they are responsible for the adverse events in their lives and those events negatively affect their self-concept, thoughts, and expectations (An American Addiction Centers Resource, 2020). Thus, cognition and the environment of an individual are key predictive factors for depressive disorder.
In contrast, the biological perspective views depression as a condition influenced by natural factors, such as genetics and the chemistry of the brain. According to Dean and Keshavan (2017), emotional processing can be impaired by such biological factors as an extreme amygdalar response to stressful events or hyperactive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Abnormal dopaminergic transmission and altered mesolimbic pathways, among other factors, can also affect the development of the condition (Dean & Keshavan, 2017). Overall, genetic predisposition and neurochemistry of the brain are the main predictors of depression. Thus, the main difference between the social-cognitive and biological perspectives is the different views on the causes of the disorder’s development.
In summary, depression is a serious syndrome that can be influenced by a wide range of factors. The social-cognitive theory states that it results from the adverse environmental events, thoughts, beliefs, and expectations of the affected persons. These factors affect each other, leading to the development of depression. In contrast, the biological perspective states that the disorder can be explained by genetics and the abnormal neurochemistry of the brain.
References
An American Addiction Centers Resource. (2020). Cognitive theories of major depression – Ellis and Bandura. MentalHelp.net. Web.
Bennett, B., Sharma, M., Bennett, R., Mawson, A. R., Buxbaum, S. G., & Sung, J. H. (2018). Using social cognitive theory to predict medication compliance behavior in patients with depression in Southern United States in 2016 in a cross-sectional study.Journal of Caring Sciences, 7(1), 1–8. Web.
Dean, J., & Keshavan, M. (2017). The neurobiology of depression: An integrated view.Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 27, 101–111. Web.