Insights into features of anxiety through multiple aspects of psychological time

Abstract

Background: It is well-recognized that emotions and emotional disorders may alter the experience of time. Yet relatively little is known about different aspects of psychological time in relation to anxiety. The purpose of the present study was to explore several aspects of temporal processing, including time perspective, prospective and retrospective time estimation, in persons with anxiety symptoms. Methods: A total of 110 individuals with varying degrees of anxiety participated in two studies. They were assigned to two groups (anxiety-control) based on their scores on anxiety measurements. Participants also completed an inventory of time perspective and several time estimation tasks which were analyzed on a group-level. Depressive symptoms were assessed and used as a covariate in the second study. Results: Anxiety was significantly associated with Past Negative and Future Negative time perspectives as measured by the Swedish Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (S-ZTPI), even when controlling for the effect of depressive symptoms. No other significant differences were found. Conclusion: Exploring time perspective in persons with anxious symptoms may provide important insights into features of anxiety. These findings may offer new ways of conceptualizing anxiety and provide suggestions for treatment strategies.

Depressive symptoms and time perspective in older adults: associations beyond personality and negative life events

“…The results provide strong support of the notion that depressive symptoms are linked to time perspective (Anagnostopoulos & Griva, 2012;van Beek et al, 2011) and that this pattern generalizes to older adults (Desmyter & De Raedt, 2012). Regarding the time perspective dimensions, our results confirm earlier findings of a strong positive relationship between Past Negative and depressive symptoms (e.g.…”

Getting “Stuck” in the Future or the Past: Relationships between Dimensions of Time Perspective, Executive Functions, and Repetitive Negative Thinking in Anxiety

“…Beginning with time perspective, results confirmed previous observations concerning associations between anxiety, Past Negative [6, 13], and Future Negative [13] but further enhanced clinical generalizability of prior findings to patients with anxiety disorders. A large group difference was also observed for Past Positive, which was in contrast to previous findings [13] and might point to low Past Positive as a possible indicator of severer mental distress [10].…”

“…A large group difference was also observed for Past Positive, which was in contrast to previous findings [13] and might point to low Past Positive as a possible indicator of severer mental distress [10]. …”

“…A few studies [6, 13] have investigated associations between time perspective and trait anxiety among college students [6] and between time perspective and anxiety symptoms [13]. These studies showed that anxiety is associated with Past Negative as well as Future Negative, although less is known about what specific components of anxiety are attributable to this association.…”

Recent advances in understanding emotion-driven temporal distortions

“…Whereas baseline time perception appears to be intact in emotion-related disorders [36,37], exaggerations of emotion-driven temporal distortions have been observed, particularly in individuals with anxiety and specific phobias [20,38,39]. Manic, but not euthymic, bipolar patients also demonstrate altered emotion-driven temporal distortions, suggesting that such distortions are state, rather than trait, dependent features of this disorder [33].…”