COMING SOON!

COMING SOON!

Dr. Christopher G. Beevers
University of Texas at Austin

Psi Chi Distinguished Speaker Address

Short Biography

Dr. Beevers received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Miami and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University. He joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin in 2005 and is currently a Professor and the Wayne H. Holtzman Regents Chair in Psychology. He has published over 150 scientific articles and has received numerous grants and awards. Dr. Beevers' primary research interest focuses on understanding the causes and treatment of depression in adults using an experimental psychopathology framework and data science methods.

Talk

Cognitive Bias Modification for Depression

Cognitive theories of depression suggest that negative cognition has a causal role in the disorder. For instance, thinking negatively about the self or persistently focusing on negative information are thought to maintain an episode of depression. However, there have been relatively few studies using research designs that allow for strong tests of this hypothesis. Cognitive bias modification provides a research framework that allows for such tests. Specifically, cognitive bias modification targets a specific cognitive bias, attempts to remediate it, and then examines whether symptoms subsequently improve. This talk will review recent research from my laboratory where we attempted to modify negatively biased self-referential cognition and attention among depressed adults. Results provide preliminary causal evidence for the role of these biases in depression. Future directions for this work will also be discussed.

For a more in-depth review of this work, please see our pre-print review of the topic: https://doi.org/10.18738/T8/ZUU9DB.