Anxiety, Depression, and Explanation-based Pessimism for Future Positive and Negative Events
✍ Scribed by Andrew K. MacLeod; Philip Tata; John Kentish; Frances Carroll; Elaine Hunter
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 145 KB
- Volume
- 4
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1063-3995
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A study is reported which examined pessimism about the future in anxiety and depression. Anxious patients (N 20), depressed patients (N 15) and controls who were either high in trait-anxiety (N 17) or low in trait-anxiety (N 16) were asked to estimate the likelihood of a range of future positive and negative events, and were also asked to provide explanations why these events would (pro reasons) or would not (con reasons) happen to them. Anxiety and depression were associated with judging negative events to be likely and positive events to be unlikely. These probability judgements were reflected in accessibility of reasons, where, compared with controls, anxious and depressed subjects gave more pro relative to con reasons for negative events and more con relative to pro reasons for positive events. Results are discussed in relation to the simulation heuristic (Kahneman and Tversky, 1982) and the possible differences in future-directed thinking in anxiety and depression.