| Objective: To explore the effect of positive future thinking intervention on positive emotions,expectations and emotional sensitivity,and also to investigate the intervention influence of positive future thinking on the symptoms and expectations in individuals with depressive tendency.Methods: The study was conducted adopting pretest-intervention-posttest pattern.The subjects were divided into experimental group and control group,each consisting of 43 participants.According to the BDI scores of the participants in the pre-test,some of them were further allocated into three sub-groups: 10 subjects with high depressive tendency in the experimental group(BDI score > = 14),9 subjects with high depressive tendency in the control group and 8 subjects with low depressive tendency in the control group(BDI score < = 4).The intervention lasted 30 minutes in each day for continuous seven days.The best possible self(BPS)intervention was used in the experimental group.The subjects were required to imagine their ideal self in the future,and wrote down the relevant details in the imagination within 30 minutes.While in the control,the participants were asked to recall and write down what they have done in the past day within 30 minutes.In the pre-test and post test,both the scales and the experimental measurements were used.The following scales were adopted: Beck Depression Inventory(BDI),Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule(PANAS),Index of Well Being(IWB),Attention to Positive and Negative Information Scale(APNI),Beck Hopelessness Scale(BHS).In this study,two objective cognitive experimental measurements were included:(1)The likelihood estimation measure(LEM)paradigm was used to investigate the future thinking,in which four types of events(positive and negative future events that could happen to them in the future,either related to or unrelated to their personal goals,each consisting of 20 trials)were randomly presented to the subjects,and the subjects were instructed to evaluate the likelihood that the given events would occur to them in the future based on a 50-point Likert scale(1: not at all likely to occur,50: extremely likely to occur).(2)A morphing paradigm was used to investigate the sensitivity of emotion recognition,in which facial expressions slowly changed from neutral to full-intensity emotion(i.e.,happy,sad,angry,and disgusted)gradually in 2%incremental steps,and the participants were asked to judge the onset of an emotion.Results:(1)After intervention,the positive emotions in the BPS group(compared with the control group)significantly increased,while the depression and hopelessness symptom significantly reduced.More importantly,we found the similar pattern in the high depressive tendency group as in the BPS group after intervention.(2)In terms of the possibility assessment of future events,the participants in the BPS group(compared to the control group)showed higher possibility assessment of positive future events either related or unrelated to personal goals after the intervention;Furthermore,we found that,after intervention,the high depressive group regareded the positive self-related events as more self-relevant than that in the pretest.(3)In the sensitivity of the face recognition sensitivity,the results showed that after BPS intervention,the participants in the high depressive tendency group became more sensitive towards sad emotion(i.e.,the emotional intensity needed to properly identify the emotion classification became lower),while the other two control groups either high or low depressive tendency did not show such significant difference between the pretest and posttest.Conclusion:(1)The BPS intervention based on positive future imagination can effectively improve the mental health of individuals with depressive tendency;(2)The BPS intervention can significantly improve the positive expectation towards the future;(3)After BPS intervention,the participants with high depressive tendency became more sensitive in the recognition of sad emotion. |
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