Goal-directed thinking and Anticipatory Affect in Chronic Depression
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Goal-directed thinking and Anticipatory Affect in Chronic Depression with Cluster C personality difficulties
IRAS ID
224556
Contact name
Katie Rose
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Holloway University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 30 days
Research summary
People with a history of depression often do not actively engage in pursuing goals, something that is frequently a focus of psychological therapies.
Problems engaging in goal-directed behaviour is thought to result from cognitive factors (e.g. not being able to see what steps are needed to achieve goals) and negative beliefs about the likelihood of attaining them (Vincent, Boddana and MacLeod, 2004). However, there is also an important emotional component that motivates pursuing goals. Anticipatory affect refers to the in-the-moment affective experience that occurs when a person thinks about their future (Schlösser, Dunning and Fetchenhauer, 2013). Thinking about future-oriented goals theoretically ignites positive anticipatory affect, which then provides an affective-motivational “spark” that galvanizes behaviour towards goals (MacLeod, 2016).
Furthemore, chronic depression very often exists alongside cluster C personality difficulties (78% overlap; Friborg et al., 2013), which describes people with anxious and avoidant personality-types. Difficulties in affect regulation and affective avoidance is known to exist within this population (Steenkamp, et al., 2015; Snir, Avigal, et al. 2016), who are often difficult to help engage in moving towards their goals within the context of psychological therapy. the study will examine lack of positive anticipatory affect and an excess of negative anticipatory affect as a candidate mechanism for not engaging in goal-directed behaviour.The main research question of this study is: Are there significant differences in goal-related, anticipatory affect between depressed individuals with Cluster C personality difficulties and a non-clinical control group.
A second question relates to ways of thinking about goals: does imagining goal outcomes (outcome thinking) versus thinking about steps necessary to attain goals (process thinking) show different effects on anticipatory affect for depressed and non-depressed participants.REC name
East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EM/0215
Date of REC Opinion
8 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion