| dc.description.abstract | Background and aim: Mental Time Travel is the ability to mentally project oneself into one’s personal past or future, in term of memories of personal past events or projections of possible events in the personal future. The aim of the present study was twofold. It aimed to shed further light on the positivity bias in Mental Time Travel in individuals with mixed symptoms of anxiety and depression and tested whether there was a distinction in positivity bias between anxiety and depression.
Methods: Participants with mixed symptoms of anxiety and depression were compared to controls. A 2 (group: mixed symptoms (n=22), control group (n=52)) x 2 (valence: positive, negative) x 4 (time: distant past, recent past, recent future, distant future), was used. Furthermore, within the mixed symptoms group symptom measurements and accessibility of past and future oriented negative and positive events were correlated. A combination of the Autobiographical Interview and the Modified Autobiographical Memory Interview was used; participants had to recollect past and imagine future events after the presentation of a positive or negative cue word. The dependent variable was reaction time of recollection.
Results: Findings showed that there were no differences in accessibility of past and future oriented positive or negative events between the mixed symptoms and control group. Total state anxiety scores were not associated with each of the dependent variables. Trait anxiety scores, on the other hand, were positively related to reaction times on Negative Recent Past, and BDI-II scores were positively related to reaction time on Negative Recent Past, and negatively to reaction time on Positive Distant Future. However, regression analyses, including both anxiety and depression symptoms, indicated that symptoms of depression were not a significant predictor for Negative Recent Past and Positive Distant Future, neither was trait anxiety for Negative Recent Past accessibility scores.
Conclusion and discussion: The current study failed to support the notion that people suffering from both symptoms of anxiety and depression have a reduced positivity bias during MTT. Contrary to the hypotheses, symptoms of depression and trait anxiety were each associated with decreased accessibility of negative events in the recent past and symptoms of depression were associated with improved accessibility of positive events in the distant future. Therefore, results failed to provide support for the notion of a reduced positivity bias in depression, and a distinction between anxiety and depression | |
