Here's why those who struggle with depression have so much trouble believing in their own abilities and trusting in their own success
, these beliefs are often out of line with reality. For example, someone with depression might think, “No one really cares about me,” even if they have friends or family members who clearly do.
This new research focused on a phenomenon called “cognitive immunization.” Just as a vaccine can make your body less “open” to infection, cognitive immunization can make your beliefs less open to change. The problem is that while we want our bodies to shut down infections, we don’t want our brains to shut down new evidence.
For this new research, the authors recruited individuals with a wide range of scores on the Beck Depression Inventory, a common self-report measure of depression. Research participants were told the study would require them to take a test that was very difficult and designed “to be solved correctly by only a few people.”