Depression (mood) in the context of "Content validity"

Play Trivia Questions online!

or

Skip to study material about Depression (mood) in the context of "Content validity"

Ad spacer

⭐ Core Definition: Depression (mood)

Depression is a mental state of low mood and aversion to activity. It affects about 3.5% of the global population, or about 280 million people worldwide, as of 2020. Depression affects a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings, and sense of well-being. The pleasure or joy that a person gets from certain experiences is reduced, and the afflicted person often experiences a loss of motivation or interest in those activities. People with depression may experience sadness, feelings of dejection or lack of hope, difficulty in thinking and concentration, hypersomnia or insomnia, overeating or anorexia, or suicidal thoughts.

Depression can have multiple, sometimes overlapping, origins. Depression can be a normal temporary reaction to life events, such as the loss of a loved one. Additionally, depression can be a symptom of some mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and dysthymia. Depression is also a symptom of some physical diseases and a side effect of some drugs and medical treatments.

↓ Menu

>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
In this Dossier

Depression (mood) in the context of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləɱ vɑŋ ˈɣɔx] ; 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was only beginning to gain critical attention before his death from suicide at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.

Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful, but showed signs of mental instability. As a young man, he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted into ill-health and solitude. He was keenly aware of modernist trends in art and, while back with his parents, took up painting in 1881. His younger brother, Theo, supported him financially, and the two of them maintained a long correspondence.

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Fear

Fear is an unpleasant subjective emotional state arising in response to perceived dangers or threats and which, when experienced, is typically associated with physiological and psychological changes. These changes frequently lead to behavioral reactions such as fight-or-flight responses or, in extreme cases, immobilization (freeze response). Unlike most (perhaps all) other animals, humans can experience fear in response to a present or anticipated stimulus and to imagined events.

Most internalizing psychopathologies (depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and so forth) are associated with and maintained by dysfunctional, anxious, or fearful feelings and thoughts. Phobias, or exaggerated and often disabling fears, are usually similarly dysfunctional.

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Nostalgia

Nostalgia is sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word nostalgia is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), a Homeric word meaning "homecoming", and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning "pain"; the word was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. Described as a medical condition—a form of melancholy—in the early modern period, it became an important trope in Romanticism.

Nostalgia is associated with a longing for the past, its personalities, possibilities, and events, especially the "good old days" or a "warm childhood". There is a predisposition, caused by cognitive biases such as rosy retrospection, for people to view the past more positively and the future more negatively. When applied to one's beliefs about a society or institution, this is called declinism, which has been described as "a trick of the mind" and as "an emotional strategy, something comforting to snuggle up to when the present day seems intolerably bleak".

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Melancholia

Melancholia or melancholy (Ancient Greek: μελαγχολία, romanizedmelancholía; from μέλαινα χολή, mélaina cholḗ, 'black bile') is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval, and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly depressed mood, bodily complaints, and sometimes hallucinations and delusions. Besides a pathological condition, melancholy could also refer to a mood or temperament and at times it was even used as a description of the human condition in general.

Melancholy (or more precisely the 'black bile', from which melancholy derives its name) was regarded as one of the four temperaments matching the four humours. Until the 18th century, doctors and other scholars classified melancholic conditions as such by their perceived common cause – an excess of a notional fluid known as "black bile", which was commonly linked to the spleen. Hippocrates and other ancient physicians described melancholia as a distinct disease with mental and physical symptoms, including persistent fears and despondencies, poor appetite, abulia, sleeplessness, irritability, and agitation. Later, fixed delusions were added by Galen and other physicians to the list of symptoms. In the Middle Ages, the understanding of melancholia shifted to a religious perspective, with sadness seen as a vice and demonic possession, rather than somatic causes, as a potential cause of the disease.

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Procrastination

Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there could be negative consequences for doing so. It is a common human experience involving delays in everyday chores or even putting off tasks such as attending an appointment, submitting a job report or academic assignment, or broaching a stressful issue with a partner. It is often perceived as a negative trait due to its hindering effect on one's productivity, associated with depression, low self-esteem, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy. However, it can also be considered a wise response to certain demands that could present risky or negative outcomes or require waiting for new information to arrive; for instance, procrastinating on a suicide intent can serve the agent’s interests.

From a cultural and social perspective, students from both Western and non-Western cultures are found to exhibit academic procrastination, but for different reasons. Students from Western cultures tend to procrastinate in order to avoid doing worse than they have done before or failing to learn as much as they should have, whereas students from non-Western cultures tend to procrastinate in order to avoid looking incompetent or demonstrating a lack of ability in front of their peers. Different cultural perspectives of time management can impact procrastination. For example, in cultures that have a multi-active view of time, people tend to place a higher value on making sure a job is done accurately before finishing. In cultures with a linear view of time, people tend to designate a certain amount of time on a task and stop once the allotted time has expired.

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Headache

A headache, also known as cephalalgia, is the symptom of pain in the face, head, or neck. It can occur as a migraine, tension-type headache, or cluster headache. There is an increased risk of depression in those with severe headaches.

Headaches can occur as a result of many conditions. There are a number of different classification systems for headaches. The most well-recognized is that of the International Headache Society, which classifies it into more than 150 types of primary and secondary headaches. Causes of headaches may include dehydration; fatigue; sleep deprivation; stress; the effects of medications (overuse) and recreational drugs, including withdrawal; viral infections; loud noises; head injury; rapid ingestion of a very cold food or beverage; and dental or sinus issues (such as sinusitis).

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Psychosocial hazard

A psychosocial hazard or work stressor is any occupational hazard related to the way work is designed, organized and managed, as well as the economic and social contexts of work. Unlike the other three categories of occupational hazard (chemical, biological, and physical), they do not arise from a physical substance, object, or hazardous energy.

Psychosocial hazards affect the psychological and physical well-being of workers, including their ability to participate in a work environment among other people. They cause not only psychiatric and psychological outcomes such as occupational burnout, anxiety disorders, and depression, but they can also cause physical injury or illness such as cardiovascular disease or musculoskeletal injury. Psychosocial risks are linked to the organization of work as well as workplace violence and are recognized internationally as major challenges to occupational safety and health as well as productivity.

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Self-serving bias

A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner. It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and efforts, but ascribe failure to external factors. When individuals reject the validity of negative feedback, focus on their strengths and achievements but overlook their faults and failures, or take more credit for their group's work than they give to other members, they are protecting their self-esteem from threat and injury. These cognitive and perceptual tendencies perpetuate illusions and error, but they also serve the self's need for esteem. For example, a student who attributes earning a good grade on an exam to their own intelligence and preparation but attributes earning a poor grade to the teacher's poor teaching ability or unfair test questions might be exhibiting a self-serving bias. Studies have shown that similar attributions are made in various situations, such as the workplace, interpersonal relationships, sports, and consumer decisions.

Both motivational processes (i.e. self-enhancement, self-presentation) and cognitive processes (i.e. locus of control, self-esteem) influence the self-serving bias. There are both cross-cultural (i.e. individualistic and collectivistic culture differences) and special clinical population (i.e. depression) considerations within the bias. Much of the research on the self-serving bias has used participant self-reports of attribution based on experimental manipulation of task outcomes or in naturalistic situations. Some more modern research, however, has shifted focus to physiological manipulations, such as emotional inducement and neural activation, in an attempt to better understand the biological mechanisms that contribute to the self-serving bias.

↑ Return to Menu

Depression (mood) in the context of Chronic pain

Chronic pain is pain that persists or recurs for longer than 3 months. It is also described as burning, electrical, throbbing, or nauseating pain. This type of pain contrasts with acute pain, which is associated with a specific cause, typically resolves when the cause is treated, and decreases over time. Chronic pain can last for years. Persistent pain often serves no apparent useful purpose.

The most common types of chronic pain include back pain, severe headache, migraine, and facial pain. Chronic pain can lead to severe psychological and physical effects that may persist for a lifetime. Physical complications can include damage to brain neurons (grey matter loss), insomnia and sleep deprivation, metabolic disorders, chronic stress, obesity, and heart attack. Mental health consequences may include depression and neurocognitive disorders.

↑ Return to Menu