A penny for your thoughts: Dimensions of self-generated thought content and relationships with individual differences in emotional wellbeing. Īndrews-Hanna, J., Kaiser, R., Turner, A., Reineberg, A., Godinez, D., Dimidjian, S., & Banich, M. Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression.

Thus, a greater tendency to generate positive rather than negative imagery-based mental representations when spontaneously thinking about the future may influence how optimistic one feels, which in turn may influence one’s experience of negative mood.Ībramson, L. Further, the relationship between emotional mental imagery and optimism was found for future, but not past, thinking, nor for verbal future or past thinking. Consistent with hypotheses, higher optimism statistically mediated the relationship between a higher proportional frequency of positive relative to negative mental imagery during spontaneous future thinking and lower negative mood. Participants ( N = 44) with varied levels of naturally occurring negative mood reported current levels of optimism and the real-time occurrence and characteristics of spontaneous thoughts during a sustained attention computer task. This study investigated the hypothesis that an elevated tendency to generate positive relative to negative mental imagery during spontaneous future thinking would be associated with reduced negative mood via its relationship to higher optimism. Preliminary evidence suggests that the generation of mental imagery-based representations of positive relative to negative future scenarios is related to optimism. Thus, understanding the factors that contribute to individual variation in optimism may inform interventions for mood disorders. Optimism is known to buffer against negative mood.

Smoking improving negative moods