Several theories suggest that mood disorders, like depression and anxiety, involve relatively systematic biases in how one imagines and predicts their future feelings. Here, we examine whether affective forecasting errors for mildly evocative, everyday emotional events are associated with differences in depression, anxiety, and somatic symptom severity in a non-clinical sample drawn from the general population. Participants read descriptions of 20 affective pictures which varied in terms of their normative valence (pleasantness/unpleasantness) and arousal (activation/deactivation). Based on the provided descriptions, participants rated their predicted emotional reaction to each picture. One week later, rated their experienced emotion in response to viewing each picture. Depression, anxiety, and somatic symptom severity were assessed using self-report questionnaires. Results revealed that those with greater anxiety or depression symptom severity, but not greater somatic symptom severity, had increased error in predicting their negative emotions for normatively positive future events (e.g., viewing pictures of stereotypically pleasant animals). Supplemental analyses revealed that individuals with greater depression symptom severity tended to over-predict their future negative feelings, while individuals with greater anxiety symptom severity made more errors in general (i.e., they both over- and under-predicted future negative emotions). These findings suggest that biases in predicting one’s future affective feelings, particularly one’s future negative feelings, may play a role in mood disorder symptom severity, and highlight potential differences in how emotional predictions may be biased for those with greater depression and/or anxiety symptomology.

一些理论表明，情绪障碍，如抑郁和焦虑，涉及人们如何想象和预测未来感受的相对系统性偏差。在这里，我们研究了从普通人群中抽取的非临床样本中，对轻度唤起的日常情绪事件的情感预测错误是否与抑郁、焦虑和躯体症状严重程度的差异相关。参与者阅读 20 张情感图片的描述，这些图片的规范效价（愉快/不愉快）和唤醒度（激活/失活）各不相同。根据提供的描述，参与者对每张图片的预期情绪反应进行评分。一周后，评估他们在观看每张照片时所经历的情绪。使用自我报告问卷评估抑郁、焦虑和躯体症状的严重程度。结果显示，那些焦虑或抑郁症状严重程度较高但躯体症状严重程度不较高的人，在预测他们对未来正常积极事件（例如，观看刻板的令人愉悦的动物的图片）的负面情绪时，错误率更高。补充分析显示，抑郁症状严重程度较高的个体往往会高估未来的负面情绪，而焦虑症状严重程度较高的个体总体上会犯更多错误（即，他们会高估和低估未来的负面情绪）。这些发现表明，预测一个人未来的情感感受，特别是一个人未来的负面情绪，可能会影响情绪障碍症状的严重程度，并强调了对于抑郁和/或焦虑症状较严重的人，情绪预测可能存在偏差的潜在差异。