Can You Define The Behavioral And Cognitive Theory Of Depression?

Behavioral theory goes for the
positive and negative reinforcement in the life events. These theorists
consider reinforcement very important for the causation of depression. Depressed
people receive fewer positive verbal reinforcement from their families
and they experience more negative events. According to their theory the failure
to receive positive reinforcement  and repeated paring of negative
reinforcement and punishment usually make the things unfavorable for an
individual’s growth.A second set of interrelated cognitive
theories of depression have also generated  an enormous amount of research.
American psychologist, Martin Seligman ,was the   first proposed that
depression stems from "learned helplessness", based on  the laboratory
research on dogs. For individuals experiencing prolonged exposure to
unmanageable and unavoidable events leads to significant anhidonia, pessimism,
and loss of motivation. An adaptation of this theory by another American
psychologist, Lynn, argues that depression results not only from helplessness,
but also from hopelessness. The hopelessness theory characterize depression to
a pattern of negative thinking in which people see inward reasons for the
causation of negative events, and over-generalize specific weaknesses as
applying to many areas of their life.

Below mentioned websites help you out in finding the theories of depression:

www.nj-act.org