Extending findings from memory research (Ono and Devilly, 2016), recent studies have demonstrated PTSD-associated alterations in future thinking. Future events generated in response to cue words are overgeneral (Brown et al., 2013; Kleim et al., 2014), containing fewer event-specific details in individuals with PTSD (Brown et al., 2014; Verfaellie et al., 2023). Imagining in detail a future event entails (1) event construction (i.e., the initial search for and specification of an event) and (2) event elaboration (i.e., subsequently filling in the event with details) (Addis et al., 2007). Prior research suggests PTSD-associated abnormalities in elaborating future events, but little is known about event construction and PTSD. Understanding future thinking in PTSD more comprehensively is important, as anticipation of future events helps shape one's outlook towards the future.

We examined future event construction in PTSD using a future event fluency task (MacLeod and Byrne, 1996) previously administered to other clinical populations (MacLeod and O'Connor, 2018). Participants generate in one minute as many future positive and negative events as possible that may happen in different time periods. We considered separately the number of specific (i.e., unique) and generic (i.e., recurrent or ongoing) events generated, assuming that overgenerality would be reflected in a paucity of specific events.

Because PTSD is associated with difficulty retrieving specific positive memories (Harvey et al, 1998), we reasoned individuals with PTSD might also have difficulty imagining specific future positive events. Additionally, because dysphoric symptoms - a component of PTSD - are associated with reduced generation of positive future events (MacLeod and O'Connor, 2018), we predicted that future event fluency would be more reduced for positive than negative events. We predicted that both PTSD and no-PTSD groups would generate fewer specific events for the distant versus proximal future, because the distant future is construed more abstractly (Trope and Liberman, 2010).

We additionally examined relations between specific event generation and PTSD symptom profiles. Given that thought suppression as an emotion regulation strategy is related to avoidance symptoms (Seligowski et al., 2016), we predicted an inverse relation between avoidance and specific event construction. Because avoidance in PTSD concerns positive and negative emotions (Roemer et al., 2001), we predicted associations between avoidance and the generation of specific positive and negative future events. By contrast, because depression has been associated specifically with generating positive future events (MacLeod and O'Connor, 2018), we predicted that depression symptoms and PTSD symptoms categorized taxonomically as “negative alterations in cognition and mood” (NACM) would be inversely associated only with specific positive event generation.