Using Positive Simulation Training to improve predictions about the future in depression

抑郁症是一种使人衰弱的疾病，会给经历抑郁症的人带来巨大的心理痛苦。抑郁症还对日常生活的许多其他方面产生深刻的负面影响，包括身体健康，教育程度和就业状况。因此，了解抑郁症的原因并制定干预措施来治疗它将对个人和社会都有重大利益。先前的研究表明，抑郁症与消极的思维方式有关，即个人对自己、世界和未来持有消极的看法。最近的研究表明，对未来持消极看法是导致和维持抑郁发作的主要因素之一。我们提出的研究建立在我们以前的研究结果，即对未来的看法可以通过我们称之为“积极模拟训练”的干预来减少负面影响。在我们之前的研究中，参与者被呈现了一系列潜在的生活事件，15个积极的（例如，人们会钦佩你）和15个负面（例如，你身边的人会拒绝你）。对于每一个事件，参与者预测它在未来发生的可能性有多大，他们认为他们对它有多大的控制权，以及它对他们有多重要。然后，他们参加了积极模拟训练任务，在这个任务中，他们被要求在脑海中尽可能生动地模拟一系列积极的未来事件，以回应出现在电脑屏幕上的提示词/短语。一个控制组参加了一个中性的可视化任务，他们被指示想象中性的场景（例如当地购物中心的布局）尽可能生动。然后，研究人员向参与者展示了第二组潜在的生活事件，并要求他们对发生的可能性、控制和重要性进行评级。我们发现，与中性可视化任务相比，积极模拟训练导致参与者对未来事件的期望有所改善。积极的未来事件被认为更有可能发生，消极的事件发生的可能性较小，而个人认为自己对积极和消极的未来事件都有更多的控制权。这些影响在抑郁和非抑郁的个体中都观察到。我们现在希望在这些初步发现的基础上，确定积极模拟训练是否可以用于治疗在抑郁症中观察到的其他负面未来偏见。我们计划解决的问题包括以下几个方面：1.积极模拟训练能否让参与者对未来的重要事件产生更积极的看法？2.积极模拟训练能让你对未来的事情有更积极的看法吗？3.积极模拟训练能增强实现个人目标的可能性吗？4.积极模拟训练能改善对未来事件可能性的内隐（无意识）信念吗？这一点很重要，因为已经表明，内隐信念对行为有强大的影响。5.积极模拟训练能增强对未来的乐观情绪吗？我们的最终目标是开发一种基于积极模拟训练的干预措施，通过减少对未来的负面想法的影响来支持抑郁症的康复。

Depression is a debilitating condition that causes immense psychological distress to those who experience it. Depression also has profoundly negative effects on many other aspects of everyday living, including physical health, educational attainment, and employment status. Understanding the causes of depression and developing interventions to treat it will, therefore, have significant benefits both for individuals and for society. Previous research has shown that depression is associated with a negative thinking style, whereby individuals hold negative views about themselves, the world, and the future. Recent research has indicated that holding negative views about the future is one of the main factors in causing and maintaining depressive episodes. The research we propose builds on our previous findings that views about the future can be made less negative by an intervention we have termed "Positive Simulation Training". In our previous research, participants were presented with a range of potential life events, 15 positive (e.g., people will admire you) and 15 negative (e.g., someone close to you will reject you). For each event, participants predicted how likely it was to occur in the future, how much control they thought they had over it, and how important it would be to them. They then took part in the Positive Simulation Training task in which they were instructed to mentally simulate a series of positive future events as vividly as possible in response to cue words/phrases that appeared on a computer screen. A control group took part in a neutral visualisation task in which they were instructed to imagine neutral scenes (e.g. the layout of their local shopping centre) as vividly as possible. Participants were then presented with a second set of potential life events and asked to rate them for likelihood of occurrence, control, and importance. We found that Positive Simulation Training led to improvements in participants' expectations about the future events, compared to the neutral visualisation task. Positive future events were rated as more likely to occur and negative events less likely, and individuals rated themselves as having more control over both positive and negative future events. These effects were observed in both depressed and non-depressed individuals. We now wish to build on these preliminary findings and establish whether Positive Simulation Training can be used to treat other negative future biases that have been observed in depression. The questions we plan to address include the following:1. Can Positive Simulation Training lead to more positive views about future events that are personally important to the participants? 2. Can Positive Simulation Training lead to more positive views about how future events will make one feel?3. Can Positive Simulation Training enhance beliefs about the likelihood of achieving personal goals? 4. Can Positive Simulation Training improve implicit (unconscious) beliefs about the likelihood of future events? This is important because it has been shown that implicit beliefs have a powerful effect on behaviour. 5. Can Positive Simulation Training enhance more general feelings of optimism about the future? Our eventual aim is to develop an intervention based on Positive Simulation Training that will support recovery from depression by reducing the effects of negative thoughts about the future.