The Influence Of The Personal Goal Relevance And Temporal Distance Of Future Thinking On The Psychological Pain Of Individuals With Depressive Tendency

Psychological pain is very common in depression,and it is a manifestation that is highly related to the risk of suicide.Previous studies have focused on patients with clinical depression,and less attention has been paid to non–clinical depression.Studies have shown that depressed people will show a decline in positive expectations,and pessimistic expectations for the future will often become a self–fulfilling prophecy and aggravate their psychological pain and depression.So can individuals be properly guided to have a positive future imagination,so as to alleviate their psychological pain?This study aims to explore whether positive future imagination can alleviate the psychological pain level of individuals with depressive tendency.Considering that there are many influencing factors in the effect of future imagination,this study further selected two factors related to the processing characteristics of depression,temporal distance and personal goal relevance,to explore whether the two will have an impact on the effect of future imagination on alleviating psychological pain.Details as follows:study one examines the level of psychological pain of individuals with depressive tendency,and explores the relieving effect of positive future imagination on psychological pain.According to the Beck Depression Scale,38 people with depressive tendency were screened out,and 47 people in the non–depressive control group were selected.The two groups of subjects were randomly assigned to the positive or neutral future imagination group.By comparing the changes in the level of psychological pain before and after the imagination,the impact of future imagination on psychological pain was investigated.Study two added two influencing factors: the temporal distance of future imagination and the relevance of personal goals on the basis of study one.76 individuals with depressive tendency were randomly assigned to the long–term future–personal goal–related,long–term future–personal goal–independent,and short–term Future–personal goal–related and short–term future–personal goal–related four groups were used to imagine the future.By comparing the changes in the level of psychological pain before and after the imagination,the influence of temporal distance and the correlation of personal goals on the effect of future imagination were examined.Turn out:(1)There is a significant difference in the baseline level of psychological pain,and the psychological pain level of the depressive group is higher than that of the control group.(2)After positive future imagination,the psychological pain level of individuals with depressive tendency and the control group was significantly reduced.(3)The relevance of personal goals has a significant impact on the effect of future imagination.Individuals with depressive tendency who imagine future events related to personal goals have a significantly lower psychological pain score than the personal goal irrelevant group.(4)Temporal distance also has a significant impact on the effect of future imagination.Those with a depressive tendency to imagine short–term future events have significantly lower psychological pain scores than the long–term future event group.Therefore,this study draws the following conclusions: positive future imagination can effectively alleviate the psychological pain of individuals with depressive tendency,and short–term positive future imagination related to personal goals has a better effect on alleviating psychological pain.This may provide some valuable references for non–clinical depressed people to relieve bad mood and reduce the risk of suicide.