Three are briefly mentioned here. Further, because depression leads to low energy and withdrawal, the depression leads to even less reinforcement, thus yielding a downward spiral. Learned Helplessness Seligman offered a cognitive model of depression in which the condition arises because of hopeless and helpless cognitions. Seligman suggested that this helplessness arose out of difficult life experiences, most notably failures, and that with a helpless set of beliefs the person became passive and interpreted life and its experiences as useless. Abramson added to the cognitive component by suggesting that attributions lead to helpless beliefs.
Depressed persons tend to do the opposite.
The point is that those making sense of the world in this way are more vulnerable to feeling helpless, and hence depressed. A third model of depression is that proposed by Aaron Beck. This cognitive model is rather straight-forward. Those that interpret the everyday world in negative ways tend to get depressed. Problems are magnified and good possibilities are ignored or minimized.