Abstract
Beck and his colleagues have hypothesized that the symptoms of anxiety and depression have distinct cognitive correlates. They hypothesize that depression is associated with cognitions concerning loss and deprivation, whereas anxiety is associated with cognitions concerning threat and danger. In the present work, we suggest a modification of this hypothesis. We hypothesize that the impact of threat and loss cognitions varies as a function of severity: specifically, that very high levels of threat influence symptomatology as loss cognitions typically do and that low levels of loss have effects similar to those of threat cognitions. Threat and loss cognitions and symptoms of depression and anxiety were assessed in a nonclinical sample of young persons and analyzed through regression techniques. The results of these analyses provide support for the hypotheses.
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This article is based in part on a thesis conducted by the first author under the supervision of the second and submitted to Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree in psychology. This research was supported in part by the Texas Advanced Research Program through a grant (3060) awarded to the second author.
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Ambrose, B., Rholes, W.S. Automatic cognitions and the symptoms of depression and anxiety in children and adolescents: An examination of the content-specificity hypothesis. Cogn Ther Res 17, 153–171 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01172963
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01172963