Cognitive approaches to depression have benefitted from recent research on belief updating, examining how new information is used to alter beliefs. This review presents recent advances in understanding various sources of bias in belief updating in depression. Specifically, research has demonstrated that people with depression have difficulty revising negative beliefs in response to novel positive information, whereas belief updating in depression is not related to an enhanced integration of negative information. In terms of mechanisms underlying the deficient processing of positive information, research has shown that people with depression use defensive cognitive strategies to devalue novel positive information. Furthermore, the disregard of novel positive information can be amplified by the presence of state negative affect, and the resulting persistence of negative beliefs in turn perpetuates chronically low mood, contributing to a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop of beliefs and affect. Synthesising previous research, this review proposes a coherent framework of when belief change is likely to occur, and argues that future research also needs to elucidate why people with depression hesitate to abandon negative beliefs. Recent insights from belief updating have not only improved the understanding of the psychopathology of depression, but also have the potential to improve its cognitive-behavioural treatment.

抑郁症的认知方法受益于最近关于信念更新的研究，研究如何使用新信息来改变信念。这篇综述介绍了在理解抑郁症信念更新的各种偏见来源方面的最新进展。具体来说，研究表明，抑郁症患者很难根据新的积极信息修正消极信念，而抑郁症的信念更新与消极信息的增强整合无关。就积极信息处理不足的机制而言，研究表明抑郁症患者会使用防御性认知策略来贬低新的积极信息。此外，对新的积极信息的忽视可能会因状态负面影响的存在而被放大，由此产生的消极信念的持续存在反过来又会导致长期的低落情绪，从而导致信念和情感的自我强化的负反馈循环。综合以前的研究，本综述提出了一个连贯的框架信念改变何时可能发生，并认为未来的研究还需要阐明为什么抑郁症患者不愿放弃消极信念。最近的信念更新见解不仅提高了对抑郁症精神病理学的理解，而且有可能改善其认知行为治疗。