Concurrent and prospective associations of habitual overgeneral memory and prospection with symptoms of depression, general anxiety, obsessive compulsiveness, and post-traumatic stress

Abstract

Reduced memory specificity is associated with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and some other forms of psychopathology. Reduced memory specificity is also associated with reduced specificity of envisioned future events. Research in this area has mostly relied on cue-word methods that include explicit instructions to develop specific memories of future events. These methods are limited in their ability to assess how participants habitually remember the past and imagine the future when the specificity constraints inherent in the cue-word task are removed. Sentence completions tasks have been developed that can be used to assess habitual patterns of memory and prospection. Little is known about the association of habitual memory and prospection with concurrently and prospectively assessed psychopathology. In the current study 142 participants completed sentence completion tasks tapping habitual memory and prospection at baseline and completed measures tapping psychological symptoms at baseline and 1 year later. Among other things, it was found that reduced memory specificity (but not reduced future specificity) was associated with concurrent and later depression, as well as with symptom levels of PTSD tapped 1 year beyond baseline.

Keywords:

• Autobiographical memory
• Future thinking
• Specificity
• Depression
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• PTSD

Alice Achterberg, Wiebke Georg, Paulien Ligtvoet, Hans Pieterse, Marjolein Runhaar, and Friso Swierenga are thanked for their help in conducting this study.

Alice Achterberg, Wiebke Georg, Paulien Ligtvoet, Hans Pieterse, Marjolein Runhaar, and Friso Swierenga are thanked for their help in conducting this study.

Notes

¹ The correlation between the Specificity Index and the Overgenerality Index of the SCEPT was r=−.47, p< .001. The correlation between these indices of the SCEFT-2 was r=−.38, p< .001. This indicates that the Specificity and Overgenerality Indices of the SCEPT and SCEFT-2 represented associated, yet distinguishable phenomena.

² To reduce the number of analyses and in keeping with prior research (e.g., Robinaugh et al., 2012) we did not conduct distinct analyses based on the proportion of extended responses on the SCEPT and SCEFT-2.