Positive thinking and depression

Positive thinking gets a good run in most pop songs and a majority of self-help, make-your-life-amazing books. Having a positive disposition is certainly a productive way to live both physically and mentally but does manufacturing positive thoughts do you any good? Lots of research suggests that it may not and a new study has added another layer to that body of study.

The new research actually involved four studies. In one study subjects were asked to imagine themselves in 12 different open-ended scenarios. They were asked to imagine how the scenario would play out. The subjects wrote down whatever came to mind and then rated how positive or negative their imagined outcomes were.

The results showed that people who imagined more positive scenarios scored lower on depression scales immediately after the test. However, when they were tested again one month later they scored higher on depressive symptoms than those who had imagined more negative scenarios. So imagining positive outcomes had a positive effect on mood in the short term but in the long term was actually linked to a greater likelihood of depression.

This was supported in another study of children which found that those who reported more positive fantasies had fewer depression symptoms initially but then showed more depressive symptoms seven months later.

Additional findings from a study on university students showed that those students with more positive fantasies were less inclined to put effort onto their coursework.

It may be then, that imagining positive outcomes takes you away from the present and doing what needs to be done to achieve those positive outcomes. In the end, it all reinforces that false positivity or imagined positivity is nowhere near as powerful as cultivating a positive disposition that gets you engaged in the present moment in productive ways.