In Chapter 5 of our textbook, Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems by Jamie A. Gruman, Frank W. Schneider, and Larry M. Coutts, the authors discussed learned helplessness, the hopelessness theory of depression, and hopeless depression. I, as a graduate student most interested in anxiety, depression, and trauma, paid special attention to this part of the writing and found it quite interesting.
The learned helplessness model of depression is a model based on a 1975 study by Martin Seligman, in which Seligman administered unavoidable and uncontrollable shocks to dogs. Later, the dogs were again shocked but were given the ability to escape the shocks, yet they didn’t. Seligman proposed that the reason for this was because the dogs had already learned that there was nothing they could do to change the situation they were in, and therefore, did nothing when shocked again, even though they had the opportunity to escape the shocks; the dogs had become psychologically helpless, much like humans with depression. The model was then adjusted into a cognitive-social model of human depression in 1978 called the attributional reformulation of the learned helplessness theory of depression, which proposed that people are depressed as a result of the attributions they make for why bad things happen to them. In this model, people who are depressed are said to make pessimistic attributions which lead them to believe that they are helpless to change anything and that nothing they can do or say will change what is happening to them. According to Seligman, thoughts of helplessness regarding the future lead to symptoms of depression.
The hopelessness theory of depression (HTD) was developed by Abramson, Metalsky, and Alloy (1989), and was based on the learned helplessness theory of depression. HTD suggests that when the following two factors are present concurrently, depressive symptoms are extremely likely to occur; the following two factors are (a) a vulnerable person, and (b) negative environmental circumstances. Though the two factors occurring concurrently are especially likely to cause depressive symptoms to occur, experiencing one of the two by itself could be a risk of developing depressive symptoms. In HTD, a vulnerable person is described as someone who has a propensity to interpret the cause of aversive life events negatively, this is referred to as the pessimistic explanatory style. Someone with this type of explanatory story would explain an adverse event as being due to a stable, or unchangeable, cause rather than an unstable, or changeable cause. For example, if they were to fail at a task, they may say it’s because they are unskilled or untalented, which will leave the individual depressed longer than an individual who would attribute this to not trying hard enough or not having practiced enough. Related to the pessimistic explanatory style, is the propensity to have negative outcome expectancies. These are also called hopelessness expectancies and are described as the expectation that desirable outcomes will fail to occur and that the individual is unable to change the outcome and their situation, or conversely, that undesirable outcomes are destined to occur and are unavoidable.
The unique type of depression that comes from these expectancies has been referred to as hopelessness depression, and shares many symptoms with clinical depression as described in the DSM, but has more particular symptoms, such as increased interpersonal dependency, and decreased self-esteem, as well as apathy and lethargy. There is evidence from research to support the idea that hopelessness depression is a disorder distinguishable from other forms of clinical depression. Research has shown that pessimistic styles of attribution can predict symptoms of hopelessness in depression. This type of research is very important as knowing the factors in the development of depression can help in preventing and treating depression and anxiety. For example, using this line of research, if one is to believe that having a pessimistic explanatory style and having negative outcome expectancies is a factor in developing depression, professionals can create interventions to help clients change expectations and their explanatory style to help prevent depressive styles, help treat depression, or lessen the likelihood of reoccurrence.
The hopelessness theory of depression and the concept of learned helplessness are still being discussed and further explored to this day, showing how influential these theories are to the field of psychology. Though some studies dispute some aspects of the theory (as with most research studies), other aspects have been supported, with the most pervasive aspect to come out of the HTD being the diathesis-stress model. Indeed, a study from 2015 found that the assertion that a relationship exists between negative inferential styles and depression through exposure to negative life events was supported by their data (Liu RT, Kleiman EM, Nestor BA, Cheek SM. The Hopelessness Theory of Depression: A Quarter Century in Review. Clin Psychol (New York). 2015 Dec 1;22(4):345-365. doi: 10.1111/cpsp.12125. Epub 2015 Nov 24. PMID: 26709338; PMCID: PMC4689589), showing that the diathesis-stress model has remained a strong theory to explain the development of mental disorders. As with many theories in Psychology, many researchers dispute or doubt aspects of the study, while others, like the diathesis-stress model, have been supported, but either way, these studies are not only extremely interesting, but have been influential to the field of psychology.
References:
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2005). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Sage Publications, Inc.
Liu RT, Kleiman EM, Nestor BA, Cheek SM. The Hopelessness Theory of Depression: A Quarter Century in Review. Clin Psychol (New York). 2015 Dec 1;22(4):345-365. doi: 10.1111/cpsp.12125. Epub 2015 Nov 24. PMID: 26709338; PMCID: PMC4689589