Less Positive or More Negative? Future-Directed Thinking in Mild to Moderate Depression

Abstract

Depressed patients have been found to generate fewer anticipated positive future events, but most previous studies have included patients who have either been severely depressed or expressed suicidal thoughts and intents or both. The aim of this study was to compare positive and negative future-directed thinking in persons with mild to moderate depression who did not express suicidal thoughts or intents (n = 20) with a matched group of nondepressed persons (n = 20). The two groups completed the Future-Thinking Task (FTT), in which they were asked to generate positive and negative anticipated future events for three upcoming time periods (1 week, 1 year, and 5–10 years). In the present version of the FTT, both quantitative and qualitative aspects were included (i.e. subjective likelihood and emotional valence). Results showed that depressed persons reported lower scores regarding anticipated future positive events but they did not differ in terms of future negative events. The results are consistent with previous research and further strengthen the notion that reduced anticipation of future positive events is a defining characteristic of depression, even in the absence of suicidal ideation.

Key words:

• future thinking
• cognitive processing
• depression
• suicide.

Acknowledgment

This study was sponsored in part by a grant from the Swedish Research Council to Dr Andersson. We acknowledge the help from the members of the KLARA research group.