ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, AND EXPLANATION-BASED PESSIMISM FOR FUTURE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EVENTS

A study is reported which examined pessimism about the future in anxie ty and depression. Anxious patients (N = 20), depressed patients (N = 15) and controls who were either high in trait-anxiety (N = 17) or low in trait-anxiety (N = 16) were asked to estimate the likelihood of a range of future positive and negative events, and were also asked to p rovide explanations why these events would (pro reasons) or would not (con reasons) happen to them. Anxiety and depression were associated w ith judging negative events to be likely and positive events to be unl ikely. These probability judgements were reflected in accessibility of reasons, where, compared with controls, anxious and depressed subject s gave more pro relative to con reasons for negative events and more c on relative to pro reasons for positive events. Results are discussed in relation to the simulation heuristic (Kahneman and Tversky, 1982) a nd the possible differences in future-directed thinking in anxiety and depression. ((C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.).