The Effects Of Trait Anxiety And Future Time Perspective On Episodic Future Thinking

Episodic future thinking(EFT)is the ability to project oneself into the future to pre-experience an event and is an important part of mental time travel.When individuals process positive EFT,these constructions will spend a shorter time and more vivid than negative EFT and neutral EFT;after repetitive EFT,the levels of detail and individual arousal are significantly increased,the degree of difficulty is significantly reduced,and individuals are more inclined to think that these scenes or events will happen in the future.The study found that patients with generalized anxiety disorder are more likely to construct negative EFT than normal individuals,and they tend to think that these negative events will occur in the future and is easier to explain why these events will happen.According to Essenk's personality theory,the individual's trait level belongs to the low-order personality.The discussion of low-order personality can reveal the individual's habitual behavior.Trait anxiety is a long-term habitual emotional experience,and an individual's more stable personality trait.Its typical performance is situational or expectant anxiety.At present,there is no specific research on the effect of trait anxiety on EFT Therefore,in this study,we chose students with different levels of trait anxiety to study the the effect of trait anxiety on EFT.In addition,individuals often repetitively simulate and imagine some future scenarios or eventsin real life.Individuals with anxiety disorders have asymmetries when they repeate different valence EFT.Therefore,this study will continue to explore the effect of trait anxiety,valence and repeatability on EFT.Future time perspective(FTP)a relatively stable trait which reflectsindividuals' perception,emotional experience and action tendency towards future.It's used to describe the individuals differences on the time dimension.Studies found that FTP can affect individual's Self-consciousness,which in turn will affect the individual's EFT;Besides,researches on goal-directed episodic future thinking reveals its correlation with future time perspective(FTP).FTP is a relatively stable trait which reflects individuals' perception,emotional experience and action tendency towards future.It's used to describe the individuals differences on the time dimension.When individuals develop a series of episodic future thinking on their future goals,they are affected by their FTP,At the same time,individuals will keep correcting their perception,emotional experience and action tendency toward current and future.Above all,our study focused on the following issues:(1)The effect of trait anxiety,valence on EFT;(2)The effects of trait anxiety,valence and repeatability on EFT;(3)The relationship between FTP and EFT.Study1 aimed at the differences among college students with different trait anxiety levels when they simulated positive,neutral and negative novel future events.It was a3(valence: positive/neutral/ negative)×2(group: high trait anxiety group/low trait anxiety group)two factor mixed experimental design,of which valence was within-subject factor and group was between-subject factor.The experiment used experimental recombination procedure to present cue phrases(randomly presented positive,neutral,and negative emotional words and formed clue phrases with different valences).Individuals first constructed EFT based on these cue phrases,and then rated the phenomenological experience of EFT.Repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there were no significant differences in the phenomenological experience of EFT(valence,arousal,familiarity,level of detail,clarity,and level of difficulty)among students with high and low trait anxiety levels when they were working on different valence EFT,and there were significant differences in the possibility of EFT.To investigate the effect of repeatability when college students with different trait anxiety levels simulate positive,neutral and negative novel future events,study 2 was done.It was a 3(valence: positive/neutral/ negative)×2(group: high trait anxiety group/low trait anxiety group)×2(repeatability: once/fourth)three factor mixed experimental design,of which valence and repeatability was within-subject factor and group was between-subject factor.We still used the experimental recombination procedure,in which both high trait anxiety group and low trait anxiety group simulated positive,neutral and negative novel future events either once or repeatedly,and ratedtheir phenomenological experience of EFT.Repeated-measures ANOVA showed that the main effect of valence was significant on valence,arousal,level of detail,and level of difficulty of EFT;and the main effect of repeatability was significant on familiarity and clarity of EFT;and the main effect of group was significant on possibility of EFT.Besides the interaction effect of valence and repeatability was significant on familiarity and possibility of EFT,and the interaction effect of valence and group was significant on clarity and level of difficulty of EFT.In study 3,we explored the relationship between FTP and EFT.The experimental results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between future adherence and arousal,familiarity,clarity,and likelihood;the future-perspicuity was significantly positively correlated with the level of detail,clarity,and likelihood;the future confusion was significantly negatively correlated with arousal;the future positive was positive Significantly positive correlation with possibility.Further regressions found that FTP can significantly predict the level of valence and clarity of EFT,and trait anxiety can significantly negatively predict the ease and possibility of EFT.Overall,it is concluded that:(1)Under non-repeated conditions,there were no significant differences in the phenomenological experience of EFT(valence,arousal,familiarity,level of detail,clarity,and level of difficulty)among students with high and low trait anxiety levels when they were working on different valence EFT,and there were significant differences in the possibility of EFT;(2)Under repeated conditions,repeated EFT significantly improves the level of familiarity and clarity,and neutral EFT' s possibility;(3)Further regressions found that FTP can significantly predict the level of valence and clarity of EFT,and trait anxiety can significantly negatively predict the ease and possibility of EFT.