title: Episodic future thinking in generalized anxiety disorder.
abstract: Research on future-oriented cognition in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) has primarily focused on worry, while less is known about the role of episodic future thinking (EFT), an imagery-based cognitive process. To characterize EFT in this disorder, we used the experimental recombination procedure, in which 21 GAD and 19 healthy participants simulated positive, neutral and negative novel future events either once or repeatedly, and rated their phenomenological experience of EFT. Results showed that healthy controls spontaneously generated more detailed EFT over repeated simulations. Both groups found EFT easier to generate after repeated simulations, except when GAD participants simulated positive events. They also perceived higher plausibility of negative-not positive or neutral-future events than did controls. These results demonstrate a negativity bias in GAD individuals' episodic future cognition, and suggest their relative deficit in generating vivid EFT. We discuss implications for the theory and treatment of GAD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 648 Beacon St. 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02215 USA.
authors.forename: Jade Q
authors.initials: JQ
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
authors.forename: Karl K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Szpunar
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 648 Beacon St. 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02215 USA.
authors.forename: Sheina A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Godovich
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University William James Hall 210, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Northwest Building, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Schacter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 648 Beacon St. 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02215 USA. Electronic address: shofmann@bu.edu.
authors.forename: Stefan G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Hofmann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognition; Emotion; Episodic future thinking; Generalized anxiety disorder