{"id":75969,"date":"2022-08-15T12:12:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T16:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=75969"},"modified":"2022-08-22T14:32:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T18:32:37","slug":"culture-and-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture &#038; Depression: You&#8217;re Primed for Pessimism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How are culture and depression connected? Which cultural influences predispose you to depression?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Martin Seligman&#8217;s studies in psychology, modern culture has primed you to be at risk of developing depression. Seligman advocates for overcoming cultural pessimism and embracing optimism while keeping a balanced (realist) perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read on to learn why culture and depression are so closely connected, according to Seligman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-culture-and-depression-an-epidemic-of-pessimism\">Culture and Depression: An Epidemic of Pessimism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>People end up trapped in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/seligman-learned-helplessness\/\">learned helplessness<\/a> mindset as a result of modern culture\u2019s overemphasis on personal achievement and self-esteem. <strong>Psychologist Martin Seligman wants us to cultivate an optimistic mindset to break the cycle that feeds into culture and depression.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Seligman uses \u201cpessimism\u201d interchangeably with \u201clearned helplessness,\u201d and our guide will do the same. This is because learned helplessness is, by nature, a pessimistic mindset\u2014it\u2019s the belief that bad things will happen and there\u2019s nothing you can do about it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Culture and Depression Are Inseparable<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Seligman says that the modern epidemic of culture and depression is the result of the modern focus on the self. <strong>Society today is all about the individual, with emphasis on personal experiences and personal achievements<\/strong>. (Seligman calls this phenomenon the <em>maximal self<\/em>.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Going hand in hand with this focus on the self is <strong>pressure from society to have high self-esteem<\/strong>\u2014to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ways-to-feel-better-about-yourself\/\">feel good about yourself<\/a>.<strong> <\/strong>Any number of self-help gurus will tell you that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/brene-brown-confidence\/\">confidence and self-esteem<\/a> are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-the-key-to-success-in-life\/\">the keys to success<\/a> in life. However, Seligman says that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-self-esteem-and-why-is-it-important\/\">self-esteem is<\/a> the <em>result <\/em>of success, not the cause of it.<\/strong> In fact, unearned self-esteem (in other words, narcissism) can lead to criminal behavior and violence\u2014attempts to force the world to give you what you think you deserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, culture and depression are related because of the modern emphasis on self-esteem, as a result, people who <em>don\u2019t <\/em>have high self-esteem feel as though they\u2019re somehow failing. Naturally, that feeling drives their self-esteem even lower.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How are culture and depression connected? Which cultural influences predispose you to depression? According to Martin Seligman&#8217;s studies in psychology, modern culture has primed you to be at risk of developing depression. Seligman advocates for overcoming cultural pessimism and embracing optimism while keeping a balanced (realist) perspective. Read on to learn why culture and depression are so closely connected, according to Seligman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":76007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7,24],"tags":[719],"class_list":["post-75969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-lifestyle","category-society","tag-learned-optimism","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Culture &amp; Depression: You&#039;re Primed for Pessimism - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How are culture and depression related? According to Martin Seligman, modern society is fueling pessimism and depression. Find out why.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Culture &amp; Depression: You&#039;re Primed for Pessimism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How are culture and depression related? According to Martin Seligman, modern society is fueling pessimism and depression. Find out why.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-15T16:12:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-22T18:32:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/sad-man-sitting-in-city.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1232\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Emily Kitazawa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Emily Kitazawa\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Emily Kitazawa\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e094024454c7d3334a149c0cf039bdeb\"},\"headline\":\"Culture &#038; Depression: You&#8217;re Primed for Pessimism\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-15T16:12:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-22T18:32:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/\"},\"wordCount\":337,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/sad-man-sitting-in-city.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Learned Optimism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Health\",\"Lifestyle\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/\",\"name\":\"Culture & Depression: You're Primed for Pessimism - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/culture-and-depression\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/sad-man-sitting-in-city.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-15T16:12:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-22T18:32:37+00:00\",\"description\":\"How are culture and depression related? 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