Affect, Emotional Disorder, and Future-directed Thinking

Abstract

Affect, it has been argued, can be divided into two higher order dimensions of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) (Watson, L.A. Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). This framework has been used to provide an analysis of depression and anxiety, and has also been integrated with the account of aversive and appetitive motivational systems outlined by Gray (1987) and others (L.A. Clark, Watson, & Mineka, 1994). The present studies represent an attempt to extend this framework to include patterns of future-directed thinking. Two studies are reported in which a sample of students completed measures of PA and NA, depression and anxiety, hopelessness and worry, and positive and negative expectancies. Factor analysis revealed two clear factors. The first factor had loadings from NA, anxiety, worry, negative expectancies, and depression; the smaller second factor had loadings from PA and positive expectancies, and negative loadings from hopelessness and depression. The results support the existence of two basic cognitive-affective systems that also span biological, behavioural, and motivational levels.