The Relationship Between Vividness of Positive Future-Oriented Mental Imagery, Anhedonia, and Positive Affect

Abstract

The vividness with which people can imagine positive events happening in their future has been linked to a number of different aspects of psychopathology and wellbeing. These relationships are hypothesised to arise from the role of mental imagery in thinking about the future and its close links to emotion. The current research investigated the associations between the vividness of positive future-oriented imagery, anhedonia, and positive affect via two cross-sectional studies. In a first study, a predominantly healthy young student sample (N = 79) completed measures of imagery, anhedonia, positive affect, and both questionnaire and lab-based measures of a range of aspects of psychopathology and wellbeing. A second study used baseline data from a clinical trial that recruited a transdiagnostic sample (N = 58) from two inpatient clinics. Results indicated a strong positive relationship between positive future-oriented imagery vividness and the experience of positive affect in both samples, whereas relationships between positive imagery vividness and anhedonia were also present but weaker. These results can inform further research to understand the role of mental imagery in both psychopathology and healthy functioning, and how it can be harnessed in interventions to reduce symptoms of psychopathology and increase wellbeing.

Keywords: Mental imagery; anhedonia; positive affect; prospection; vividness.