DEPRESSIVE FUTURE-THINKING - THE ROLE OF VALENCE AND SPECIFICITY

Two distinctions concerning types of depressive future-thinking were e xamined anticipation of positive or negative experiences at a general or a specific level. Mildly depressed (dysphoric) and nondepressed (co ntrol) undergraduates estimated the general likelihood of a range of f uture positive and negative events and were also asked to provide a sp ecific example of each event. Dysphoric subjects showed a greater beli ef ill the likelihood of negative events but did nor differ significan tly from controls in their likelihood estimates for positive events. C ompared with controls, dysphoric subjects were faster to provide speci fic examples of negative events relative to positive events. Correlati onal analyses revealed that future-thinking concerning negative events was primarily related to levels of depression whereas future-thinking concerning positive events was primarily related to levels of hopeles sness. It is concluded that there are important distinctions to be dra wn concerning types of future-thinking and that these distinctions may be differentially related to particular emotional disorders.