J Happiness Stud (2009) 10:483496 DOI 10.

1007/s10902-008-9102-9 RESEARCH PAPER

The Future is Bright? Effects of Mood on Perception of the Future

Silvia R. Hepburn Thorsten Barnhofer J. Mark G. Williams

Published online: 4 June 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract Most people believe that the future will bring them more good things than bad, and therefore have high hopes for the future (MacLeod et al. Cogn Emot 10:6985, 1996). However, many patients with mood disorders do not hold this positive belief about the future. At the extreme, low expectations of positive outcomes in the future can lead to feelings of hopelessness (OConnor et al. Psychol Health Med 5:155161, 2000). This paper aims to extend the literature on subjective probability of future events, using a mood induction paradigm to examine the effects of transient mood change on perceived likelihood of future events in a non-clinical community sample. Participants rated likelihood of future events from a standardized list and from their own lives. Ratings were made in both normal and experimentally-induced positive or negative mood. Results show that selfgenerated future events were perceived to be more likely than those from a standardized list, and that negative mood signicantly biased perceived likelihood of other-generated future events. Participants rating standardized list events saw positive outcomes as less likely and negative outcomes as more likely in induced negative mood than they did in normal mood. Mood had no effect on ratings of self-generated events. Possible directions for future research are discussed. Keywords Future thinking Mood induction Subjective probability Hopelessness Cognitive bias

Our attitude towards the future is inuenced by our beliefs about how likely it is that good things will happen to us relative to bad things (MacLeod and Tarbuck 1994). Pessimism about the future is one component of Becks depressive thinking triad, along with
S. R. Hepburn T. Barnhofer J. M. G. Williams University of Oxford, Oxford, UK S. R. Hepburn (&) Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, De Crespigny Park, P.O. Box 78, London SE5 8AF, UK e-mail: silvia.hepburn@iop.kcl.ac.uk

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negativity about the self and the world (Beck et al. 1979). Reduced positive expectations about the future have been shown to relate to feelings of hopelessness in suicidal groups (Conaghan and Davidson 2002; OConnor et al. 2000). This study investigates the potential role of mood in biasing future-oriented judgment. Johnson and Tversky (1983) have shown that manipulating peoples mood affects their perception of the risk of negative future events. This study uses a mood induction paradigm to examine the effect of mood state on subjective probability ratings of positive and negative self-generated and other-generated future events made by a non-depressed community sample. The existing literature on future-oriented judgment consists of two main types of study. The rst examines the ability to generate examples of positive and negative future events within a given time limit. Fluency for positive future events has been found to be reduced in suicidal and depressed individuals (e.g. Conaghan and Davidson 2002; Hunter and OConnor 2003; MacLeod et al. 1997). Future uency studies are reviewed elsewhere (Hepburn et al. 2006; MacLeod 1999). The second type of study examines subjective probability by asking participants to rate how likely they believe particular hypothetical events are to happen in their personal future. MacLeod et al. (1996) showed that people without mental health problems believed good things were more likely to happen to them than bad things, but the same is not true of dysphoric groups (e.g. MacLeod and Cropley 1995). Studies comparing estimates of future event likelihood made by clinical and nonclinical groups have reported mixed ndings. For negative future events, studies concur that individuals with dysphoric mood give higher likelihood estimates than controls (depressed patients: Butler and Mathews 1983; MacLeod et al. 1997; dysphoric students: Andersen et al. 1992; Pietromonaco and Markus 1985). For positive future events, some studies report that individuals with mood disturbance give lower estimates of positive future events than controls (depressed patients: MacLeod and Cropley 1995; Pysczcynski and Greenberg 1987; dysphoric students: Andersen et al. 1992) but others found no group differences (dysphoric students: Pietromonaco and Markus 1985; depressed patients: Butler and Mathews 1983). These mixed results are due in part to the fact that participants are rating different lists of events (MacLeod 1999). Two factors are noteworthy. First, some studies used lists which consisted of very few items. Second, the studies presumed that events were salient for participants. This is important because people tend to rate things they feel do not apply to them as less likely than personally relevant examples (MacLeod and Tarbuck 1994; Tyler and Lomax Cook 1984). MacLeod and colleagues suggested that event salience may be more important than valence in informing probability judgments (MacLeod et al. 1997). One way to ensure that events are personally relevant is to ask each person to generate their own list of future events. Another question is left unanswered by the existing literature. The studies mentioned above found differences in perceived likelihood of future events between depressed and nondepressed individuals. However, such samples also differ dramatically in mood, which was not controlled by these studies. Hence the possibility remains that differences in the existing literature are driven simply by differences in prevailing mood (i.e. dysphoric in the depressed group, euthymic in controls). Mood affects attention, memory and many other cognitive processes (Williams et al. 1997), and biases decision-making (Schwarz and Clore 2003). To investigate whether mood has a biasing effect on judgments of future event likelihood, we conducted an analogue study of the effects of experimentally-induced mood on perceived likelihood in a non-clinical community sample. Manipulation of mood in the laboratory is well-established in experimental psychology research, using lm clips, music, memories or self-referent statements to alter mood state briey (Westermann et al. 1998).

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MacLeod and Campbell (1992) looked at differences in likelihood judgments between groups receiving positive versus negative mood induction, and found differences for both positive and negative outcomes. However, their study had no baseline comparison. The current study looks at within-subject changes in likelihood judgments across mood states. This is analogous to normal transient mood shifts, and therefore has some ecological validity. Ethical considerations preclude the possibility of exposing clinical patients to mood induction procedures, so we use an analogue sample. This limits the generalizability of ndings to clinical populations, because laboratory-induced mood is transient and the relationship between this and depressed mood in clinical patients is uncertain (Clark 1983). However, the current study takes the preliminary step of establishing whether or not judgments of future event likelihood in non-depressed individuals are subject to mood biasing effects. The current study extends the literature on subjective probability in three ways. First, the standardized list of events used is longer than in previous studies, and some studies suggest increased reliability with additional items (Cortina 1993). Second, current participants rate events from their own personal future as well as events from a standardized list, bringing increased salience (MacLeod and Tarbuck 1994). Third, instead of comparing a depressed group to non-clinical controls, a mood induction paradigm is used to elicit within-subject comparisons of a non-depressed community sample in different mood states. This allows examination of the extent to which likelihood ratings are susceptible to transient mood change. Non-clinical volunteers rated self- and other-generated future events following a laboratory-based musical induction of either positive or negative mood (Velten 1968), and these ratings were compared to ratings of the same events made in normal mood during a follow-up telephone call. We expected to replicate previous ndings (e.g. MacLeod et al. 1996) of higher likelihood ratings for positive events than for negative ones in this non-clinical sample, higher likelihood ratings were expected for self-generated events than for the less salient standardized list events (MacLeod and Tarbuck 1994). Depressed patients show higher probability ratings for negative events and lower ratings for positive events than controls with no mood disturbance (MacLeod et al. 1997). Hence we expected our analogue sample to show higher probability ratings for negative events and lower probability ratings for positive events in induced negative mood than in normal mood. These hypotheses were informed by comparisons between control groups and patients with depressed (rather than elevated) mood, so no hypotheses were made for the positive mood induction. Recent research (Huppert and Whittington 2003; MacLeod and Moore 2000) supports earlier suggestions (Watson et al. 1988) that positive and negative affect1 are best seen as orthogonal dimensions, rather than opposite ends of a single dimension. Hence it seems inappropriate to hypothesise that the effect of positive mood would simply be opposite to that of negative mood.

1 Method 1.1 Participants Fifty-two non-depressed volunteers responded to advertisements on community notice boards, websites and university mailing lists. Participants were aged between 18 and 65,
1

The terms affect and mood are used interchangeably by Watson and colleagues, though some psychologists prefer to distinguish them, with affect referring to the behavioural expression of a mood, rather than the mood itself.

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and were in the non-clinical range (M = 5.13, SD = 3.88) on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II; Beck et al. 1996). They were randomly allocated to receive the positive mood induction (Positive MI group, n = 26) or the negative mood induction (Negative MI group, n = 26). Within-subject conditions were used to control for time and repeated ratings, rather than including a third group undergoing neutral mood induction. This method is more analogous to real-life mood shifts and may have more ecological validity than an induced neutral mood state. 1.2 Materials 1.2.1 Depression The BDI-II (Beck et al. 1996) was used to ascertain that participants were not currently depressed. This self-report questionnaire has high internal consistency, validity and reliability in clinical and non-clinical samples (Beck et al. 1988). 1.2.2 Mood Ratings Participants rated mood on visual analogue scales, marking a 100 mm line to indicate their sadness and happiness at that moment (not at all to extremely). In the follow-up call, participants were reminded of the line and asked to give a number between 0 and 100 corresponding to where they would put their mark. Mood ratings were made throughout the study, including immediately before and after mood induction. 1.2.3 Self-generated Events Personally relevant future events were generated using the Personal Future Task (PFT; MacLeod et al. 1993). In an adapted version of the original task, participants were asked to think of events they were looking forward to or not looking forward to over four time periods in the future (next week, month, year, 510 years). For each trial, participants generated as many examples as possible in 30 s. The eight trials were divided into blocks of four (Block A: positive week, negative month, positive year, negative 510 years; Block B: negative week, positive month, negative year, positive 510 years). Order of trials was counterbalanced within-group by block, so that half the participants had Block A as their rst set of events (pre-induction) and Block B as their second (post-induction), while the others had the reverse. Fluency for this task (number of events generated per trial) is reported elsewhere, along with the effects of mood on uency (Hepburn et al. 2006). Participants gave ratings of the valence of their self-generated events, in order to check they were positive or negative as required. Overall, negative events had a larger spread of valence ratings than positive ones, perhaps reecting a tendency to categorize more neutral items as negative rather than positive. The self-generated items were similar to the events on the standardized list, with some overlap in content. In order to make other-generated events applicable to most participants, their tone was more general than the self-generated events (e.g. self: going to see my friend John in London at the weekend versus other: meeting up with friends). As in previous studies, events expected in the distant future were less specic than imminent events, but a preliminary analysis found no effects of time period.

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1.2.4 Other-generated Events A standardized list of 48 hypothetical events (6 positive and 6 negative events for 4 time periods) was developed as follows. A written version of the PFT was administered to a pilot sample of 15 non-depressed volunteers (graduate students aged 2435, 8 females, 13 white). Responses were adapted to be less idiosyncratic, and then combined with those used in MacLeods work (MacLeod et al. 1991, 1996, 1997; MacLeod and Cropley 1995). A shortlist of 64 items was then rated for likelihood and valence on 7-point scales, by a convenience sample of eight non-depressed volunteers (university employees aged 1955, all white females). The nal list of 24 positive and 24 negative items had clear positive or negative valence (events were cut if mean positivity and negativity ratings differed by less than 1 point), and were perceived as possible but not inevitable (events were cut if mean likelihood lay below 2.5 or above 5.5). The nal list was divided into two sub-lists. Postinduction, participants rated the likelihood of events from one of the two sub-lists. At follow-up all participants rated both sub-lists of events in recovered mood. 1.2.5 Likelihood Ratings Participants rated how likely each event was to happen, using a scale of 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). The experimenter read items aloud and wrote down participant responses. Mean ratings were calculated for each category of events (positive self-generated, negative self-generated, positive other-generated, negative other-generated) for each phase of the experiment. 1.3 Procedure 1.3.1 Pre-induction Phase (Laboratory, Before Mood Induction) Volunteers were sent an information sheet before their assessment, and the experimenter went through this with them in person before consent was taken. The sheet explained that they were equally likely to be allocated to receive a positive versus a negative mood induction. Participants answered socio-demographic questions and completed the BDI-II. In the rst block of the PFT, they generated their rst set of self-generated future events, which they rated for likelihood. Then the mood induction was administered for 8 min. 1.3.2 Mood Induction The mood induction procedures involved participants reading 30 uplifting or depressogenic self-statements (Velten 1968) while listening to appropriate music (Positive: Gigue from Corellis Violin Sonata, opus 5.9; Negative: Russia Under the Mongolian Yoke by Prokoev, at half speed). Participants reected on the statements in their own time for eight minutes while music played. Music was played at low volume throughout the postinduction phase. A booster was administered for two minutes (after the second block of PFT), during which the volume was increased and participants were asked to focus again on the statements. The purpose of the mood induction was made explicit; participants were asked to go with the feelings it evoked. Although this raises possible demand effects, Research Ethics Committees in the United Kingdom prefer instructions to be explicit, and

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meta-analysis suggests that demand effects cannot fully account for observed mood shifts (Westermann et al. 1998). 1.3.3 Post-induction Phase (Laboratory, After Mood Induction) Music was played at reduced volume throughout the post-induction phase. Participants generated their second set of self-generated future events on the second block of the PFT, and rated these for likelihood. A mood booster was then administered for two minutes. Participants rated the likelihood of other-generated events, from the standardized list. Finally, arrangements were made for a follow-up telephone call no more than 24 h after the end of the session (M = 15.3 h, SD = 8.16). The experimenter checked how participants were feeling before they left the laboratory and discussed the experience of the mood induction with them, but a full debrief was left until the end of the follow-up phone call. A positive mood induction was made available for all members of the negative MI group, but none took up the offer. 1.3.4 Follow-up (Telephone Call, Within 24 h of Laboratory Session) In the follow-up call, participants rated their mood. They gave likelihood ratings for selfgenerated events (rst, then second, set), and other-generated events (list not yet rated, then list rated during post-induction phase). They were thanked and debriefed. 1.3.5 Rationale for the Procedure The follow-up phase was an integral part of the study design. The current procedure was designed to accommodate two research questions on mood bias. As well as the current question of mood effects on perceived likelihood of future events, we were also interested in its effects on uency for generating future events (i.e. number of events generated in a given time period). Fluency for future events was measured using the PFT pre- and post-mood induction (as described in Hepburn et al. 2006). The current study used ratings of these self-generated events. It was important to compare ratings of the same events made in different mood states: a difference in ratings of one set of events rated pre-mood induction and ratings of a different set of events post-induction might be attributable to different events being rated. It was important to present the standardized list of events after the PFT was complete, as priming from the standardized list might have contaminated subsequent events generated by participants. These complications necessitated the use of a follow-up phase in normal mood, so that standardized items could be rated in normal mood subsequent to the PFT. For consistency and comparison, the same procedure was used for self-generated items, with ratings in induced mood made post-induction, and re-ratings made at follow-up. This also eliminated the risk of participants remembering their initial responses from preinduction when re-rating events a few minutes later post-induction. The telephone call was arranged soon enough after the session that self-events events were still relevant, but long enough afterwards for mood to return to normal. A statistical comparison found that mood at follow-up was not signicantly different from mood at baseline (all p [ .90).

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2 Results 2.1 Sample Characteristics Group means for demographic variables are given in Table 1, along with tests of signicance for group differences. The groups were comparable on age, education and depression scores, and there were no group differences in distribution of gender, students or relationship status. 2.2 Mood Manipulation Check To check the effectiveness of the mood inductions, happiness and sadness ratings over time were examined in two repeated-measures analyses of variance. These followed the form Group (positive MI, negative MI) 9 Time (pre-induction, post-induction, follow-up). Means are given in Fig. 1. Signicant Group 9 Time interactions were found for both happiness, F(1,50) = 26.41, p \ .001, g2 = .35, and sadness, F(1,50) = 13.77, p \ .001, g2 = .50. The interactions were followed up with pair-wise post-hoc comparisons (Bonferronicorrected) which indicated three main things. First, both mood inductions were effective in changing mood, though the negative one resulted in more mood change than the positive. The positive MI signicantly increased ratings of happiness compared to baseline, Mi-j = 9.46, SE = 3.18, p \ .02, but did not affect sadness, Mi-j = 2.35, SE = 2.59, p [ .90. The negative MI signicantly decreased happiness, Mi-j = 22.27, SE = 3.18, p \ .001, as well as increasing sadness, Mi-j = 20.19, SE = 2.59, p \ .001, compared to baseline. Second, the interactions indicate group differences in mood over time. Postmood induction, the positive MI group was signicantly happier than the negative MI group, Mi-j = 33.19, SE = 5.49, p \ .001, and the negative MI group were signicantly sadder than the positive MI group, Mi-j = 30.04, SE = 4.64, p \ .001. The groups did not differ in happiness either pre-induction or at follow-up (all p [ .10). Pre-induction, there was a trend for higher baseline sadness in the negative MI group (perhaps a short-term result of being informed of their group allocation), but this was not signicant, Mi-j = 7.50, SE = 4.07, p = .07. The mean group difference in sadness was identical between pre-induction and follow-up, Mi-j = 7.50, SE = 5.31, p = .16, so pre-induction and follow-up mood can be seen as equivalent. Third, the analysis showed that happiness

Table 1 Group means and comparisons on demographic variables Positive MI group n = 26 Age (yrs) Age completed education (yrs) Depression Gender Student or not Relationship status 25.46 (6.04) 23.85 (3.39) 4.65 (3.46) 10 Male 18 Students Negative MI group n = 26 25.92 (8.41) 23.00 (3.46) 5.62 (4.26) 9 Male 17 Students Test of difference

F(1,51) = .05, p = .82, r = .03 F(1,51) = .80, p = .38, r = .13 F(1,51) = .80, p = .38, r = .13 v2(1, n = 52) = .08, p = .77, Cramers V = .04 v2(1, n = 52) = .09, p = .77, Cramers V = .04

13 In relationship 15 In relationship v2(1, n = 52) = .08, p = .78, Cramers V = .07

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100 90 80

Happiness (Pos MI) Sadness (Pos MI)

Happiness (Neg MI) Sadness (Neg MI)

Mood Rating

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Pre- mood induction Post- mood induction Follow-up

Fig. 1 Visual analogue scale ratings of happy and sad mood over time

and sadness at the time of the follow-up phone call did not signicantly differ from happiness and sadness in the pre-induction phase (all p [ .90). 2.3 Likelihood Ratings of Future Events The main analysis compared likelihood ratings made by the two groups over time. Ratings of individual items were averaged to give mean ratings for self- and other-generated events of positive and negative valence. Means are shown in Fig. 2. Analysis compared ratings made post-induction with re-ratings made at follow-up. It was predicted that self-generated
Likelihood rating (1=not at all, 7 = extremely)

6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0

Post-induction

Follow-up

Time Positive MI self-gen pos event Negative MI self-gen pos event Positive MI other-gen pos event Negative MI other-gen pos event Positive MI self-gen neg event Negative MI self-gen neg event Positive MI other-gen neg event Negative MI other-gen neg event

Fig. 2 Mean perceived likelihood of self-generated and other-generated positive and negative future events rated post-mood induction and at follow-up

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events would be rated more likely than other-generated events. Compared to normal mood, we predicted that negative mood would cause participants to rate positive events as less likely and negative events as more likely. Preliminary analysis of likelihood ratings used a 4-way repeated-measures ANOVA: Group (positive MI, negative MI) 9 Time (post-induction, follow-up) 9 Event (selfgenerated, other-generated) 9 Valence (positive, negative). This yielded signicant main effects of event, F(1,50) = 149.26, p \ .001, g2 = .75, and valence, F(1,50) = 48.40, p \ .001, g2 = .49, and an Event 9 Valence interaction, F(1,50) = 5.31, p \ .05, g2 = .10. This interaction indicated that both groups deemed positive self-generated events most likely, followed by negative self-generated events, positive other-generated events, and negative other-generated events. To investigate the other signicant ndings from the 4-way analysis further (Group 9 Valence interaction, F(1,50), p \ .05, g2 = .08, Time 9 Valence interaction, F(1,50) = 23.25, p \ .001, g2 = .32, Group 9 Time 9 Valence interaction, F(1,50) = 7.35, p \ .01, g2 = .13), we examined ratings of self-generated and other-generated events separately. Two analyses of variance were performed, in the form Group (positive MI, negative MI) 9 Time (post-induction, followup) 9 Valence (positive, negative). 2.3.1 Other-generated Events For other-generated events (on Fig. 2, the lower four lines), analysis found a main effect of valence, F(1,49) = 49.59, p \ .001, g2 = .50, and interactions between group and valence, F(1,49) = 4.95, p \ .05, g2 = .09, and time and valence, F(1,49) = 13.98, p \ .001, g2 = .22. These were qualied by a Group 9 Time 9 Valence interaction, F(1,49) = 7.75, p \ .01, g2 = .14, which was followed up with post-hoc pair-wise comparisons (Bonferroni). These showed that induced positive mood had no signicant effect for either positive or negative events (p [ .10). However, induced negative mood decreased perceived likelihood of positive events, Mi-j = .27, SE = .08, p \ .01, and increased perceived likelihood of negative events, Mi-j = .33, SE = .12, p \ .01. The analysis was re-run with sub-list as a factor to control for the different sub-lists used, but results remained virtually unchanged. 2.3.2 Self-generated Events For self-generated events (on Fig. 2, the higher four lines), results were less clear-cut. There was a signicant Time 9 Valence interaction, F(1,49) = 5.82, p \ .05, g2 = .11, and main effect of valence, F(1,50) = 5.42, p \ .05, g2 = .10, but no effect of time (p = .43). Pair-wise post-hoc comparisons (Bonferroni) of the Time 9 Valence interaction showed that positive events were viewed as more likely than negative events, both at postinduction, Mi-j = .14, SE = .05, p \ .01, and at follow-up, Mi-j = .61, SE = .18, p \ .01. This nding was predicted, as the sample was non-depressed (MacLeod et al. 1996). Positive events were rated less likely post-induction than at follow-up, Mi-j = .14, SE = .05, p \ .01, but mood induction did not signicantly affect ratings of negative events (p = .36). This may reect the fact that these non-clinical participants generated relatively few negative events in the uency task (indeed, some participants generated none, reducing the power of this particular test). Perhaps such events were relatively inaccessible for them during the generation task (Hepburn et al. 2006; Newby-Clark and Ross 2003). To control for re-rating the events, a change score was calculated for repeat

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ratings of self-generated events from pre-induction to follow-up (i.e. irrespective of mood). Re-running the analysis with this change score as a covariate did not affect results.

3 Discussion This study aimed to extend the literature on subjectivity probability of future events. Previous research shows that dysphoric individuals typically perceive future bad outcomes as more likely than controls (e.g. Butler and Mathews 1983; MacLeod et al. 1997). Some, but not all, studies also report that mood-disturbed groups perceive future good events as less likely (e.g. MacLeod and Cropley 1995, but c.f. Pietromonaco and Markus 1985). Inconsistencies may result from studies: (a) using lists of events of differing length and sometimes low reliability, (b) using events which may not have been salient for participants, and (c) not controlling for mood effects. The current study addressed these issues by asking non-dysphoric individuals to rate idiosyncratic, personally-relevant future events they had generated themselves, as well as an extended standardized list of events, under different mood conditions. Within-subject comparisons showed signicant effects of experimentally-induced negative mood on estimates of future event likelihood. We rst discuss ndings from the comparison between self- and other-generated events, before considering the effects of mood, the limitations of the study, and directions for future research. The analysis showed that participants perceived self-generated future events to be more likely than events from the standardized list, just as MacLeod et al. (1997) predicted. This may be because other-generated events are harder to imagine, being less personally relevant. In this study, mood had differential effects on ratings of other-generated and selfgenerated events. Compared to their ratings under normal mood, negative mood made participants perceive negative other-generated events as more likely, but no such effect was found for negative self-generated events. This discrepancy should be interpreted with caution, given the studys limitations, outlined below. However, there are some interesting potential explanations for this nding. One would be that self-generated events are buffered from mood effects by the contextual details surrounding them, compared to events from the standardized list. Buehler and McFarland (2001) found that participants tend to focus attention narrowly on events when provided with hypothetical situations, neglecting to consider contextual information. With their participants, a narrow focus resulted in stereotypical, script-based responses which were relatively automatic. When depressed people make judgments about the future, they engage in low-effort, semi-automatic thinking (Andersen et al. 1992; Andersen and Limpert 2001), so their probability judgments may begin as a direct read-out of their mood. In judging the likelihood of other-generated events in negative mood, our participants may also have been responding semi-automatically rather than considering the event in a reallife context. In contrast, if their self-generated events were more grounded in contextual detail, making likelihood judgments more certain, they would be less susceptible to mood bias. Future studies which test this theory would be welcomed, and if replicated, the observed difference would be extremely interesting. However, it is possible that the difference is due to a ceiling effect: as perceived likelihood of self-generated events was higher than other-generated events, there may have been less scope for changes in mood to bring about changes in perceived likelihood of self-generated events. Higher likelihood of self-generated events may have been due to the instruction to think of things they were looking forward to or not looking forward to, or may reect higher accessibility of more

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probable events during the generation process. Some participants generated very few negative future events (none in some cases), so this category was relatively small (Hepburn et al. 2006). In a related study, Newby-Clark and Ross (2003) found that non-clinical participants typically recalled a mixture of positive and negative past events, but anticipated a homogeneously ideal future (i.e. exclusively non-negative events). In this respect, future studies with depressed samples (who may be able to generate a larger number of potentially negative future events) may be informative. Further work is needed to fully establish the differences between ratings of self- and other-generated events, but the inclusion of self-generated events in the current study nevertheless represents a step forward towards more ecologically valid ndings. The data shows signicant effects of negative mood on likelihood judgments of othergenerated events. Both mood inductions were effective in changing mood, but the positive induction was relatively weak, and it is not clear whether the absence of an effect of positive mood on likelihood ratings reects the weakness of the procedure, or whether a strong increase in positive mood would still have no effect on likelihood ratings. Many previous studies have found positive mood inductions to be less effective than negative mood inductions (Westermann et al. 1998). Negative mood induction inuenced ratings both of mood and of perceived likelihood of events from the standardized list. Participants in induced negative mood rated negative outcomes as more likely, and positive outcomes as less likely, than they rated the same events in normal mood at follow-up. Ratings were generally lower the rst time than the second, irrespective of mood, but when this increase was controlled, the effects remained signicant.

4 Limitations The study has limitations which must be taken into account when ndings are interpreted. The sample size was small, resulting in modest effect sizes, so the ndings should be viewed as preliminary, and requiring replication in a larger sample. In addition, the results cannot be extrapolated to apply to clinical groups, as study participants were members of the community who reported no difculties with mood. The study did not measure extraversion or introversion, which have been found to predict likelihood judgments (Zelenski and Larsen 2002). There is also some controversy surrounding experimental mood induction. Apparent mood effects may result from demand (i.e. participants trying less hard to generate mood-incongruent events). However, we consider this unlikely. The procedure is believed to successfully mimic the effects of organic negative mood on many variables, and has been shown to inuence variables which cannot be voluntarily controlled (Clark 1983; Westermann et al. 1998). As this study employs new dependent variables, we cannot be sure the results are not due to demand, but if they were, we would expect to see more consistent increases in perceived likelihood of negative future events under induced sad mood. There was a trend for the negative MI group to have higher sadness scores at baseline than the positive MI group, probably a response to the bad luck of being allocated to this group. This leaves open the possibility that the reported differences following mood induction were due to pre-induction mood. However, this seems unlikely given that the groups did not differ in pre-induction depression, happiness scores, or future uency (the number of positive or negative events they were able to generate for themselves pre-induction, Hepburn et al. 2006). Finally, because the follow-up data was collected over the phone rather than in the laboratory, it is possible that the within-subject differences in likelihood estimates were due to differences in setting rather than differences

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in mood. However, the fact that there were no signicant differences between ratings of mood at baseline and at follow-up suggests that despite the change of setting, the follow-up data reects a realistic measure of the participants normal non-induced mood state.

5 Future Directions Even taking into account the studys limitations, our nding that experimentally induced mood biases future thinking in individuals without mental health issues is an important insight which points to some questions for future work, particularly for clinical researchers. The current data follow our previous report (Hepburn et al. 2006) in showing that nondepressed participants become more pessimistic about the future after a minor and shortterm shift towards negative mood. People with a depressive illness experience intense and prolonged low mood. Is intensity and duration of negative mood all that drives the difference in future-oriented judgment observed between depressed and non-depressed individuals (e.g. Butler and Mathews 1983)? To answer this question, future studies would need to examine the disparities that remain between clinical and non-clinical samples once mood is adequately controlled. Finally, research on memory retrieval in analogue samples has found that non-depressed participants spontaneously engage in mood repair after recalling a sad memory (Joormann and Siemer 2004; Rusting and DeHart 2000). Similar studies could help to establish whether similar repair processes occur for negative thinking about the future in non-depressed individuals.
Acknowledgements This research was supported by a Wellcome Trust Prize Studentship to Silvia Hepburn. Thanks to Catherine Crane, Danielle Duggan, Melanie Fennell and Wendy Swift.

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