The prevalence rates of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) can be viewed through three lenses: Biological explanations, cognitive explanations, and sociocultural explanations. This post will focus on sociocultural explanations, and biological and cognitive ones have been discussed in past blogs.

It is believed that women have higher prevalence rates due to gender biases in reporting and diagnosing depressive symptoms.

The artefact hypothesis states that the prevalence of MDD is equal among men and women but women report and seek help for depression more than men do. Furthermore, it is suggested that there is a tendency for clinical psychologists to over diagnose depression in women.

This could be explain by social norms: Men may be unwilling to admit to and seek help in general, which is exacerbated by social norms in certain cultures that depressive symptoms are perceived as being feminine. Masculine norms, such as resilience and emotional repression, heighten self-stigma. This inhibits help-seeking and reinforces maladaptive coping styles for men.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2001, doctors are more likely to diagnose depression in women than in men, even when patients haev similar scores on standardized measures of depression or present with identical symptoms. In addition, women are more likley to be prescribed mood-altering psychotropic drugs than man.

These factors could lead to an inflation of prevalence rtes in women and an under estimation for men.

In 1981, Amenson and Lewinsohn carried out a study to investigate the artefact hypothesis under real life conditions. They found that there were actually no significant differences in how men and women labelled their own behaviour and their help-seeking behaviour. Furthermore, it was found that men and women with equal reported symptom levels were equally likely to be diagnosed as depressed, regardless of whether the interviewer was male or female.

It is interesting to note the research and counter-evidence on this topic, and it is important to consider that the sociocultural approach alone is quite holistic. It may be important to also consider other underlying factors which may lead to these differences, and which can explain why Amenson and Lewinsohn had these findings.