Faulty Thinking, Parenting and Causation in Depression

What is the cause of depression? Some would argue that depression is caused by biological means – that it is the result of genetic inheritance. Depression, however, lies in the domain of behaviorism and thought processing. Depression is primarily caused by behavioral-cognitive means with the environment having a substantial impact on the cognitive processes that determine our outlook.

Environmental and situational factors act as stressors causing anxiety in individuals. Those unable to regulate these emotions begin to develop signs of depression. In no example is this greater than when an individual participates in rumination to attempt a correction of their faulty thinking. This faulty thinking and failure to regulate emotions is not the result of genetic inheritance, but can be seen as something that evolves from parental social interaction as a child develops (Pine, 2009; Gotlib, Muhtadie, & Levens, 2009; Feng et al., 2009).

Depression clearly evolves from faulty thinking. It is the result of an inability to successfully regulate emotions that are stimulated by environmental and cognitive events. It is this behavior which in turn causes biological imbalances to the body.

Environmental Stressors, Anxiety and Depression

The causes of depression often lie outside of the body in the form of environmental stressors. These environmental stressors cause anxiety that if left untreated (especially at a young age) can develop into depression. While extreme dangers can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, mild stressors (such as a breakup in a relationship or arguments with parents) can lead to other forms of anxiety (Pine, 2009). Despite anxiety being seen as a “high energy” disorder and depression being seen as a “low energy” disorder, the two are inarguably linked. Faulty Thinking, Parenting and Causation in Depression

Roughly 85% of those diagnosed with depression were also diagnosed with anxiety problems (HealthyPlace.com, 2009). This shows a strong causal relationship between stress/stressor, anxiety and depression. Following this causation, one can easily see the path that leads a person from stress due to certain environmental/situational conditions to anxiety, and finally from prolonged anxiety (without treatment) to depression (Pine, 2009). Causation is the building block of any scientific observation, and one can clearly see the steps from stressor to depression. Although it may seem that anxiety directly leads to depression, there is actually a slight bridge between the two that is necessary to understand in order to see how depression develops from faulty thinking rather than biological means. First let’s examine a side effect of depression that will give us a good example of this bridge’s importance.

Rumination and Cognitive Interference

One important side effect of depression is the tendency to ruminate. Rumination is when one is in deep thought reflecting upon oneself. In depression, rumination usually consists of deep thought while attempting to reason with depressive thinking (whether self-image, etc.) in an attempt to correct the faulty thinking causing the depression. It’s a way to emotionally self-regulate. When one is unable to reflect with reason and instead wallows in depressive thoughts, this is termed brooding. This preoccupation in thought and failure to successfully self-regulate can cause problems with other cognitive processes. Recent studies have shown that response times amongst those with symptoms of depression were increased while they attempted to perform complex thought tasks (Gotlib, et al., 2009). In fact, response times were significantly delayed only when depressed participants were required to resolve high difficulty cognitive functions (Gotlib et al., 2009). A higher degree of cognitive interference was measured for cross-task rerouting in subjects that participated in these studies (Gotlib et al., 2009). What this shows is that rumination from depression interferes with a person’s ability to perform higher cognitive functions within an acceptable reaction time than compared to their non-depressed counterparts. Faulty thinking is interfering with their ability to complete complex tasks. This is important because it shows that preoccupation with emotional self-regulation is utilizing cognitive functions that would normally be spent on complex tasks. It shows that self-regulation is a complex task in itself and a fault in that ability can greatly affect other cognitive resources. An opposing view could argue that this “faulty thinking” is biological in nature; however, other studies have shown that depressive symptoms vary based on environmental conditions, especially parenting.

The Effects of Parenting on Depression

As mentioned previously, emotions themselves (such as anxiety) aren’t necessarily directly linked to depression. There is a bridge between the two; and as rumination has shown us, that bridge is the ability to regulate ones emotions. In a study of pre-adolescent girls, the display of emotions (whether positive or negative) had little impact on depressive symptoms; however, the ability to regulate these emotions was positively correlated with later symptoms of depression (Feng et al., 2009). This ability to regulate emotions is a direct result of parenting styles. Despite positive emotional observations, pre-adolescent girls who were parented through psychological control showed negative interactions, while those who were parented through “acceptance” had a positive impact interacting with sadness regulation (Feng et al., 2009). Results showed that sadness regulation was negatively associated with depressive symptoms among girls (participants in the study) who perceived their mothers as low or average in acceptance (Feng et al., 2009). When girls perceived their mothers as high in acceptance, sadness regulation and depression were not associated (Feng et al., 2009). We can clearly see that emotional self-regulation is not the result of some genetic inheritance, but is directly correlated with parenting style – an environmental factor. This self-regulation is the “bridge” between emotions and depression, and any fault in this bridge can result in depressive symptoms as the individual fails to regulate their emotions (such as anxiety).

Counter-Arguments

Given what’s been discussed above, those of the opposing view (that depression is caused by genetic inheritance) could still argue that these environmental and situational events are merely triggers activating the “depression gene.” Taking a closer look at this, if we note that everyone experiences depressive symptoms in their lifetime, we have to assume that everyone has this “gene” (which also makes it not necessarily “inherited” but preexisting is everyone). If everyone has this gene, and it simply gets “activated” by the conditions of one’s life, then fundamentally, it’s still the environment – and the development of faulty thinking – that triggers the initial depressive symptoms and not some biological predisposition.

Summary and Conclusion

From this evidence it can be inferred that the faulty thinking that results from depression evolves from environmental interaction and not genetic inheritance. Parenting in particular has a clear impact on the ability of a child to regulate their emotions and avoid depressive symptoms. If a person lacks this ability to successfully regulate their emotions (such as in the case of rumination – particularly brooding), then depression can occur. Failure to understand this path of causation could lead to adolescent children (and their parents) not receiving the proper information to combat depression in developing children, which could lead to larger problems with depression moving forward in their lives.

References

Gotlib, I., Muhtadie, L. & Levens, S. (2009). Rumination and impaired resource allocation in depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118(4), 757-766.

Feng, X., Keenan, K., Hipwell, A.E., Henneberger, A.K., Rischall, M.S., Butch, J., ...Babinski, D.E. (2009). Longitudinal associations between emotion regulation and depression in preadolescent girls: Moderation by the caregiving environment. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 798-808.

HealthyPlace.com. (2009). The relationship between depression and anxiety. HealthyPlace. Retrieved from http://www.healthyplace.com/depression/main/relationship-between-depression-and-anxiety/menu-id-68/

Pine, D. (2009). The environment and anxiety. In Genes to Cognition Online. Retrieved from http://www.g2conline.org/#Depression?aid=2295&cid=36