Distancing the Present Self from the past and the Future: Psychological Distance in Anxiety and Depression

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (7) ◽  
pp. 1106-1113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Rinaldi ◽  
Francesca Locati ◽  
Laura Parolin ◽  
Luisa Girelli
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

Do we Worry about the Past and Grieve for the Future? Situated Anxiety or Depression, Mood Valence and Affective Time Travel, Separated by Experiment in a Questionnaire

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Negative Affect ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Verbal Stimuli ◽  
Psychometric Scales ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

Some psychologists have viewed sadness and depression as reactions to past loss, while regarding fear and anxiety as responses to future threat. Such assumptions conflict with common experience of gloom about the future and worry about the past. Recent research on these issues by experiment and/or by questionnaire remains inconclusive. The psychometric questionnaires purport to be situation-free and the laboratory experiments use artificial tasks; hence, neither approach addresses realities in the present, past or future. In recent psychometrics, the distinction between anxiety and depression has been dissolved into one category of negative affect. One widely used inventory for separating the two emotions conflates depression with the absence of a good mood. These deficiencies were addressed in a diverse convenience sample (N = 379) by running an experiment entirely within a questionnaire. Each of the 40 question items was a miniature vignette, describing a past or future emotive situation while in bad or good mood. Five categories of situation varied in proportion of threat to loss. Strength and valence of affective response were measured by degree of autobiographical assent to or dissent from an item. This inventory provides fully affect-balanced situation-oriented depression / anxiety scaling.Effect sizes from analysis of variance showed that anxiety arises from past as well as future threats, while depression is at least as strongly oriented to losses in the future as in the past. Variation in category of situation or in valence of mood also had substantial effects. It is concluded that worry and gloom travel freely across time and situations, whether present mood is bad or good. Both laboratory experiments and psychometric scales come closer to actual processes of emotion and motivation when they revivify familiar situations using valence-balanced verbal stimuli.

Prospection, well-being, and mental health

2017 ◽  
pp. 255-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew MacLeod
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Life Trajectory

Chapter 11 provides an overview of Chapters 1 to 10 and introduces the idea of a subjective future life trajectory. A subjective future life trajectory describes the sense that persons have of themselves being located in the present, but always moving forward into the future. The trajectory involves both short-term and long-term representations about the future, which vary in detail and value. Disruptions to the trajectory can take different forms, with anxiety and depression representing the two main kinds of disruption. A settled trajectory enables someone to focus on the present, whereas disrupted trajectories pull attention away from the present to try to ‘repair’ the trajectory. A future trajectory, and a present focus, can also be disrupted by memories relating to the past portion of the trajectory. Methodological issues that have been touched upon throughout the book are revisited and suggestions made for how research could move forward.

Integrative Action: The Past for Physiology, the Future for Psychology

1980 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 230-231
Author(s):  
MARCEL KINSBOURNE
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  
The Future

Statistical Views From the past Into the Future

1991 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 786-787
Author(s):  
Vicki L. Underwood
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  
The Future
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document