Imagine How Good That Feels: The Impact of Anticipated Positive Emotions on Motivation for Reward Activities

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec> <jats:title>Background</jats:title> <jats:p>Disease burden and unsatisfactory treatment outcomes call for innovation in treatments of depression. Prospective mental imagery, i.e. future-directed voluntary imagery-based thought, about potentially-rewarding activities may offer a mechanistically-informed intervention that targets deficits in reward processing, a core clinical feature of depression. We propose that the previously described impact of prospective mental imagery on motivation for everyday activities is facilitated by <jats:italic>affective forecasting</jats:italic>, i.e. predictions about an individual’s emotional response to the imagined activities.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>Participants (<jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 120) self-nominated six activities to engage in over the following week and were randomized to either: (1) an <jats:italic>affective forecasting imagery</jats:italic> condition (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 40); (2) a <jats:italic>neutral process imagery</jats:italic> condition (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 40); or (3) a <jats:italic>no-imagery</jats:italic> control condition (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 40).</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>As predicted, increases in motivation ratings from pre to post experimental manipulation were significantly higher following affective forecasting imagery compared to both neutral process imagery (<jats:italic>d</jats:italic> = 0.62) and no-imagery (<jats:italic>d</jats:italic> = 0.91). Contrary to predictions, the number of activities participants engaged in did not differ between conditions.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title> <jats:p>Results provide initial evidence for a potentially important role of affective forecasting in prospective mental imagery. We discuss how these findings can inform future research aiming to harness prospective mental imagery’s potential for clinical applications.</jats:p> </jats:sec>