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

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.