Do (Even) Depressed Individuals Believe That Life Gets Better and Better? The Link Between Depression and Subjective Trajectories for Life Satisfaction

Abstract

We investigated the widespread belief that life gets better and better over time—as revealed in individuals’ “subjective trajectories” for life satisfaction (LS) derived from their ratings of recollected past, current, and anticipated future LS—among depressed (i.e., current major depressive disorder, fully remitted, partially remitted) and nondepressed groups using a two-wave longitudinal sample of American adults. Linear and inclining subjective trajectories (past LS < current LS < future LS) were normative among nondepressed individuals, as were nonlinear but inclining subjective trajectories (past LS ~ current LS < future LS) among depressed individuals. Furthermore, Wave 1 temporal-perspective LS ratings uniquely predicted risk of depression 10 years later (Wave 2), even after we controlled for baseline depression status. Thus, the use of a novel temporally expanded perspective revealed that even depressed individuals view their lives as improving over time and that such beliefs predict heightened (rather than less) risk of future depression.

Life Gets Better and Better: Cultural Life Script Theory and Subjective Trajectories for Life Satisfaction

“…It is important to note, however, that some research has documented the existence of a bias in young adulthood toward anticipating positive future events in general, not just for life script events (Grysman, Prabhakar, Anglin, & Hudson, ). Such findings are consistent with other research demonstrating that, in general, many young adults view their future lives in positive, idealized ways (Carstensen et al, ; Lachman et al, ; Ross & Newby‐Clark, )—and with greater consistency than how they view their past or present lives (Busseri, ; Busseri et al, ; Busseri & Peck, ; Ross & Newby‐Clark, ). Young adults' expectations for the future may thus be guided by a general bias toward anticipating that positive life events increase over time during this stage of life, rather than uniquely influenced by information within the cultural life script (Grysman, Prabhakar, Anglin, & Hudson, ; Grysman et al, ).…”

“…Thus, although individuals of all ages may believe that their LS will improve, this belief appears to be particularly strong during young adulthood (Lachman et al, ). The belief that one's life becomes increasingly satisfying over time is found even among dispositionally pessimistic and clinically depressed individuals, despite the heightened negativity characteristic of both groups (Busseri, ; Busseri et al, ; Busseri & Peck, ). Further, this belief is found not only when individuals rate their own LS, but also when they evaluate the LS of normative ‘others’ (Choma, Busseri, & Sadava, ).…”

“…In particular, younger adults with more steeply inclining subjective trajectories between current and anticipated future LS are characterized by the least positive levels of psychological functioning, both at present and in the future (e.g. less optimism, lower self-esteem, greater depression, lower hope; Busseri et al, 2009aBusseri et al, , 2009bBusseri, Choma, & Sadava, 2012;Busseri & Peck, 2015;Choma et al, 2014).…”

Subjective Trajectories for Self-Rated Health as a Predictor of Change in Physical Health Over Time: Results from an 18-Year Longitudinal Study

“…As we hypothesized, therefore, subjective perceptions of declining health from the recollected past into the anticipated future were predictive of actual declines in physical health across time. Such findings extend previous studies indicating that individuals' subjective trajectories for their overall life satisfaction predict important outcomes over time (e.g., Busseri et al, 2009;Busseri & Peck, 2015;Lachman et al, 2008) by demonstrating that such predictive links also extend to individuals' evaluation of their health. The present results also expand on previous research showing the value of SRH in predicting changes in physical health (e.g., De Salvo et al, 2006;Idler & Benyamin, 1997) by revealing the unique predictive significance of individuals' beliefs about their how health is changing over time, from the recollected past to the anticipated future.…”

Lay theories of health, self-rated health, and health behavior intentions

“…For instance, young adults tend to believe that their life has improved from the past to the present, and will continue improving into the future (Busseri et al, 2009a;Staudinger et al, 2003)-consistent with the general belief that "life gets better and better" during this life stage (Newby-Clark and Ross, 2003;Peetz and Wilson, 2008). With respect to the implications of such beliefs, whereas the perception that one's life has improved from the past to the present is linked with more adaptive functioning (Peetz and Wilson, 2008), the anticipation of even greater improvements in the future is predictive of less positive functioning, including worse health-related outcomes such as less positive perceived health status, greater physical symptoms, and greater health-care utilization (Busseri et al, 2009a(Busseri et al, , 2009b(Busseri et al, , 2012Busseri and Peck, 2015).…”