User:Guptakhy/Guptakhy-Sandbox 2-Cognitive vulnerability

For vulnerability in general and other types of vulnerability see vulnerability.

Cognitive vulnerability refers to a theory in psychology in which beliefs or cognitive biases are incorrect and are speculated to scheme for future psychological problems as they arise. It is situated before the symptoms of psychological disorders start to appear. After an individual encounters a stressful event, cognitive vulnerability asserts responsibility for a for-coming psychological disorder. In psychopathology, cognitive vulnerability is constructed from schema models, hopelessness models, and attachment theory. Attentional bias is one mechanism leading to faulty cognitive bias that lead to cognitive vulnerability. Allocating dangerous threats for organisms to attend depend on the urgency or intensity of the threshold. Anxiety is not associated with selective orientation.

Theories

Cognitive theory

Factors of cognitive vulnerability are preliminary causes (distal causes) contributing to the beginning of a temporal sequence farther from the symptoms of the disorder. Direct thoughts or images are produced when asked to express the meaning of stressful events relative to their cognitive vulnerabilities. Immediate cognitive and emotional responses lead to offsetting, defensive behavior and continue beliefs or other cognitive vulnerabilities.

Attachment theory

The contact made with caretakers of an individual determine a certain attachment process. When secure attachment is disrupted and starts to become an insecure attachment, abnormal patterns begin increasing risk for depression. Working models build perceptions of relationships with others. Cognitive vulnerability is created with maladaptive cognitive processing when building relationships and attachments.

The diathesis-stress relationship

Diathesis contributes to vulnerability. The diathesis refers to the inclination of illness. In the diathesis-stress relationship, hidden vulnerability becomes activated through events perceived as stressful by an individual. Vulnerability in psychological terms is implied as an increased probability of emotional pain and some type of psychopathology. Vulnerability can be a combination and interaction of genetic or acquired experiences. Vulnerability leads to putting up with something unpleasant and represents symptoms of various psychological disorders. Vulnerability predisposes individuals to a disorder, but does not initiate the disorder. Depending on the individual's subjective perception of an event, the diathesis is positioned to a certain psychological illness.

Psychological problems

Depression

Diagrammatic to explain the downward spiral in the dual process model.

Through several cognitive biases, selective mood-congruent cues establish through long intervals. Emotional stimuli matching the emotional concerns creating an aggregate effect on symptoms related to depression. Threatening cues process responses to certain emotional stimulus which is irrelevant to anxiety disorder. Depression prevents attention toward emotional cues that otherwise have been observed and leads to comorbid anxiety. Depression is associated with selective orientation. When individuals who are prone to depression are asked to recall a specific event, the individuals explain the general class of events (e.g., "The time when I was living with my parents").

Dual process model

Associative and reflective processing mechanisms applied when cognitive venerability is processed into depression. Dual process model is valid in social and personality psychology but is not adapted to clinical phenomena. Negative bias of one self associates processing which provides a foundation for a cognitive vulnerability to depression. Then, downward spiral forms to create forms of dysphoria. By reflective processing, the feelings of dysphoria is reinforced. Negatively biased associative processing will maintain a dysphoric mood state. Depletion of cognitive resources help in reflective processing when the stage of dysphoric mood escalates. Irrelevant tasks and intrusive thoughts come to mind when in a dysphoric mood. Negative mood increases and cognitive resources needed to combat dysphoria are depleted, further contributing to mood escalation.

Feedback loop

The feedback loop in the dual process model is between self referent cognition and dysphoria. This will bound one to avoid negative thinking. More intense dysphoric symptoms come present. The feedback loop establishes an inability to apply reflective processing to correct negative biases.

Mood persistence

Post phoning the reflective processes leads to mood persistence. As the person experiences more and more negative mood states, the person becomes less alarming to the moods. Longer periods of dysphoria assist to repair the triggered negative mood through reflective processing. Dysphoric moods create more associative processing for depressive vulnerable people by negative cognitive biases. When associative bias gets stronger, the bias becomes difficult to override. By using ineffective reflective strategies for their dysphoric moods, the depressed person leads to mood persistence.

A depressive episode as a vulnerability factor for depression

Getting another depressive episode escalates with the number of previous episodes. A depressive episode by itself is a vulnerability factor. In neurology, each episode of depression makes the neurotransmitter system deregulated. A strong stressor is needed for the initializing first episode which follows with other episodes that only require a mild stressor. With depressive episodes grows many contextual information for situations where small changes in mood are sufficient enough to activate vulnerability. Weakening and frequency of depressive episodes triggers the biological processes related to the initial episode. Depressive episodes are experienced with no control of the life's traumatic events. Depressive condition results in social rejection and lowered self esteem, leading to further depressive symptoms.

Schema models

Schemas in depression are made with the help of the stressful events in childhood. When the event is stressful in childhood, schemas condition the individual to respond in a abnormal manner to life experiences that resemble from childhood. During childhood and adolescence, the individual who is prone to depression becomes conscious of certain life situations and begins to match with prototypes of specific stressful experiences from childhood. Cognitive vulnerability is located as these schemas for stressful situations add up from childhood.

Learned hopelessness

Main article: Learned helplessness

Negative events during childhood lead the child to internalize negative events. When negative events become repetitive, and occur related to their caregivers, it leads the child to create a positive self image and optimism for their future events. Negative events contribute to global and stable attributions for future events. The patterns turn into traits of hopelessness or even depression when the individual faces a stressful situation in the future.

Bipolar disorder

A study of people with bipolar disorder found that, compared with non-bipolar controls, they had significantly higher levels of dysfunctional attitudes such as perfectionism and need for approval that increase their cognitive vulnerability to depression.

Obsessive compulsive disorder

Main article: Obsessive compulsive disorder

Negative interpretations of intrusive thoughts and images are central to the development and maintenance of obsessive compulsive disorder. Potential vulnerability factors lead to obsessive compulsive (OC) symptoms. OC symptoms are associated with beliefs concerning responsibility and harm, perfectionism and certainty, and the importance of thoughts and the need to control them. Relationships between total levels of OC symptoms and these beliefs are generally medium to large in magnitude. OC disorder-related beliefs significantly changes in OC symptoms over time. Negative life events are significant to OC symptoms.

See also

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
• Cognitive therapy (CT)
• Animal cognition
• Cognitive dissonance
• Cognitive distortion
• Cognitive bias
• Cognitive linguistics
• Cognitive module
• Cognitive space
• Cognitive style
• Comparative cognition