When researching prevalence rates of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), alongside biological factors (which were mentioned in a previous post), it is crucial to consider cognitive explanations.

A key cognitive explanation for gender differences in MDD is that of rumination.

Nolen-Hoeksema has found that women are more likely to amplify depression by ruminating about their feelings and their possible causes. That is, they think a lot about how they feel and try to understand the reasons they feel the way they do.

In 2000, Nolen-Hoeksema found that both men and women who ruminate more following the loss of loved ones are more likely to becomes depressed, suffer longer, and suffer more severe depression than those who ruminate less. According to past research, rumination appears to more consistently predict the onset of depression rather than its duration, but rumination in combination with negative cognitive styles can predict the duration of depressive symptoms.

In 2011, Farb et al carried out a lab experiment researching this cognitive explanation. It was found that depressed patients had more activation in the prefrontal gyrus (which is associated with rumination). This was found using fMRI scans, which provided quantitative, comparable data, rather than subjective findings.

This explanations is a key one in the cognitive realm, which could explain why women tend to have higher rates of depression.

It is also important to consider sociocultural explanations (which will be discussed in a future post), and biological explanations (which has been discussed in a previous post), when approaching the sensitive topic of MDD.