Specificity of Hopelessness about Resolving Life Problems: Another Test of the Cognitive Model of Depression

Although empirical evidence suggests that global hopelessness differentiates depression from anxiety, the degree to which depressed and anxious patients endorse hopelessness about specific life events has yet to be investigated. In the present study, outpatients with major depression (n = 64), outpatients with generalized anxiety disorder (n = 29), and outpatients with other psychiatric disorders (n = 56) completed the Imagined Outcome Test, in which they described the personal problem that was most distressing to them, imagined the worst and best possible outcomes, and rated the likelihood that these outcomes would actually occur. Depressed outpatients rated worst outcomes as being more likely and best outcomes as being less likely than outpatients in the other two groups. Results support the hypothesis that hopelessness about the resolution of life problems is unique to depression.