ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, AND THE ANTICIPATION OF FUTURE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES

An experiment is reported that attempts to distinguish between anxious and depressive future thinking in terms of anticipation of future pos itive and future negative experiences. Anxious, mixed (anxious-depress ed), and control participants were given an adapted verbal fluency par adigm to examine the ease with which they could think of future positi ve and negative personal experiences. Anxious participants differed fr om controls only in anticipating more future negative experiences; mix ed participants showed both greater anticipation of negative experienc es and reduced anticipation of positive experiences. Self-report measu res of hopelessness and worry followed a similar pattern to future pos itive and future negative anticipation, respectively. The results are discussed in terms of the distinction between positive affect and nega tive affect (D. Watson, L. A. Clark, & G. Carey, 1988).