Increasing Anticipated and Anticipatory Pleasure through Episodic Thinking

Abstract

<p>Episodic future thinking for positive future events is known to evoke positive affect. We aimed to assess whether it specifically evokes anticipated and anticipatory pleasure for future events, and behavioural intention. As a secondary aim, we examined if this differed compared to a condition of thinking of positive past events. In two studies, participants nominated five upcoming positive events, and five positive past events. They then completed guided episodic thinking of past events and guided episodic thinking of future events. After guided episodic thinking they rated the nominated future events on detail/vividness, mental imagery, anticipated and anticipatory pleasure, and behavioural intention. In Study 1 (N=32, M age=37.0, SD=19.7), increases on all variables were found relative to baseline, although expected pleasure was at trend level. There were no significant differences between future and past conditions. In Study 2 (N=29, M age=38.4, SD=16.3), participants were asked to nominate future events that were not already planned, and perceived control was also assessed. Again, increases in detail/vividness, mental imagery, and anticipated and anticipatory pleasure were found, this time with stronger effects for the future condition. No change was found for perceived control or intention. In both studies, increases in detail/vividness, mental imagery, and anticipated and anticipatory pleasure were generally positively correlated with increases in behavioural intention. This study provides evidence that guided episodic thinking increases anticipated and anticipatory pleasure for positive future events. Clinical implications, particularly in depression and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, are discussed.</p>

Reduced specificity and increased overgenerality of autobiographical memory persist as cognitive vulnerabilities in remitted major depression: A meta‐analysis

“…This suggests that reduced memory specificity/overgeneral memory is both a risk factor for depressive symptoms in general and a relatively stronger maintaining factor when people do then experience clinical depression. This is perhaps unsurprising given that retrieving specific information about one's past experiences is implicated in adaptive processes such as problem‐solving (Hallford, Noory, & Mellor, 2018), planning and decision‐making (Dalgleish & Werner‐Seidler, 2014), up‐regulating anticipatory pleasure for future events (Hallford et al, 2020; Painter & Kring, 2016) and maintaining social support (Barry, Vinograd, et al, 2019; Chiu et al, 2019).…”

The Traces of Imagination: Early Attention Bias toward Positively Imagined Stimuli

“…pleasure experienced during the imagery; Ji et al, 2021). Further support for the motivational effect of mental imagery is provided by Hallford, Farrell, and Lynch (2020), who showed that nominating and imagining upcoming positive events enhances ratings of pleasant anticipation and behavioral intention relative to baseline. A study by Linke and Wessa (2017) corroborates these findings on a more implicit level.…”

Characteristics of Episodic Future Thinking in Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…More specifically, how might anxiety influence characteristics such as detail/vividness, specificity, and use of mental imagery, among the many phenomenological aspects of EFT that have been examined in existing literature. These three EFT characteristics are the focus of this review as they have specifically been proposed to play a role in emotional arousal and regulation (Holmes & Mathews, 2005;Holmes & Mathews, 2010;Jing, Madore & Schacter, 2019), particularly in the elicitation of positive emotions as a means to influence behavioural intention and implementation (Hallford, Farrell & Lynch, 2019). Meta-analyses on EFT in depression have also focused on these three EFT characteristics (Gamble et al, 2019;Hallford et al, 2018), allowing comparison with the current review.…”