Women and Depression

Is it possible that women are simply more willing to admit to being depressed than men are? As a researcher, how could you assess rates of depression in a way that minimized this potential reporting problem? To answer this question: a) describe the method you would choose to collect your data; b) explain why you chose that method; and c) describe the specific measures you would take to minimize the anticipated reporting problem.

a) The method that I would use to determine whether women are more likely than men to admit to being depressed and seek help would be very simple. I would interview men and women and ask them questions about their day-to-day lives and feelings in certain situations. After I silently diagnose them, I would ask them if they think they are depressed. If there are more women who admit that they think they are depressed and I diagnosed as being depressed, that would prove the theory that depression just seems more common in women
because more women come forward to admit they are suffering from it. If most of the men I diagnosed as being depressed also admitted they thought they were suffering from depression the theory would be proven wrong.
b) I chose this because it is actually taking a sample of depressed men and women and determining how many from each gender were able to admit to their state of depression. If the numbers are really off, we can rule out the theory and test another one.
c) If there is a reporting problem with men and their depression, it is possible to fix that problem. Psychologists need to encourage the men to open up more and ask them more questions to get past the men's surface. Psychologists can't just stop at the first thing men say, they need to delve deeper and see if they can find a problem.

What biological factors might account for women's greater susceptibility to depression?
Women go through many more hormonal variations than men. Women have to give birth to children, deal with PMS, a menstrual cycle, and menopause to name a few.

What social factors might account for women's greater susceptibility to depression?
I think that women face a lot of body image issue that may lead to depression. I also think that the pressure to be the best mom and have a full time job is very common these days and I think that workload can weigh women down. Also for single women, I think there is a lot more pressure to find a partner than it is for a single man.


Young boys and girls have been shown to suffer from depression equally until they reach adolescence. At that point, depression becomes much more common in women. What might account for this change?


I think this goes back to the theory that their are men not seeking treatment for their depression. I think young boys are more likely to admit that they are battling with depression but as they grow older they learn the cruel "rule" that men should keep their feelings to themselves.

Compare your answers to Questions 2 and 3 to the information provided by the National Institute of Mental Health. Use this new information to write an essay of two to three paragraphs outlining the causes of depression in women.



The causes of depression in women are not clear to psychologists at this point in time but we can look to biological factors to determine why women might be more vulnerable to depression. Events that bring changes in mood and hormones for women are their reproductive processes: the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, post pregnancy, being infertile, menopause, and never having children. The hormone changes during these events affect the brain chemistry of some women.
A social occurrence that leads many women to become depressed is being a victim of rape. Sexual abuse causes women to have low self-esteem issues. The victims often blame themselves for what happened, feel alone and helpless, and fear and distrust people. Poverty might also be another social issue that leads women to depressision. Women and children make up 75% of the U.S.'s poor population. Poor economic status brings a lot of stressors, uncertainty, illness, and an abundance of negative events. For all age groups of women, it is also common for unmarried (and widowed) women to be depressed.


Compare your answer to Question 4 to that provided by the author of the APA article. Was your response similar? If it wasn't, it doesn't mean your hypothesis is necessarily wrong, just that you'd need to design a study to test your idea. Describe how you would design a study to test your hypothesis. Keep your description relatively brief.


My response was similar on one point but different on the rest. The point I was similar on was that boys begin to not admit depression because they are taught to keep their feelings to themselves. The article says that depression rises in girls around ages 11-13 because the roles and expectations of boys and girls are changing. My answer was different from the article when I said that I think it is because of the change in attitude in boys that even if they are depressed they will not report it. The articles answer was "Studies show that female high school students have significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and adjustment disorders than male students, who have higher rates of disruptive behavior disorders." I think to try to prove my theory I will do the same test that I described for the first questions on a group of children and also a group of adults.


Should the Field of Psychology Provide Online Diagnoses?

Present an argument in support of online diagnosis. Why might it be valuable?

There are many people who let their mental disorders go untreated. They might do this because they are too ashamed to face a person and verbally talk about what it wrong with them. Now there is an alternative to going to an actual therapist because mental illnesses can be treated online. Online diagnoses can be more affective because therapist don't often use internationally, standard ways to diagnose patients. The internationally
Accepted standard for diagnosis is called the DSM-IV, which has been found to be very reliable and is used all psychiatric research is based on this system. At Mytherapy.com, their online diagnoses system conforms directly to the DSM-IV and does not stray from that path. A real life therapist might not have enough time to keep track of all their records and every patient's progress. On Mytherapy.com, they keep a record of documents and use graphs to represent a patient's progress. Another great feature of the online diagnosis site is the "Encyclopedia of Experience". This is a type of message board where patients talk about their life, illness and how they cope with it. This can be great for patients to relate to someone else in an anonymous way and also receive advice to deal with their disease.


Now, argue against it. Why might the service be problematic? How might it actually be a disservice?

Online is very impersonal. Face-to face diagnosis could be better because it is hard to explain your emotional state with just words on a screen. Online diagnosis can be dangerous because ANYONE can set up a web site claiming they are a therapy group, take people's money, misdiagnose them and then shut the web site down.



Unit Wrap Up
What was your something that you learned in the unit? What other points do you want to share about the unit?


The saddest part of psychology is the psychological disorders. Many people suffer from them and if diagnosed correctly, many people can be helped. It is important for psychologist, therapists, and psychiatrists to be able to correctly identify these disorders in order to help their patients. It is also important to be knowledgeable on different types of therapy to help with their disorders such as psychoanalysis, humanistic therapies, behavior therapies, cognitive therapies, and group and family therapies. It is important to know which therapy suits which disorder to be able to treat a patient.