States-of-Mind in Psychopathology and Psychological Well-Being

This study investigated the states-of-mind model of depression, anxiety, anger, life satisfaction and happiness in four ways. Three hundred and ninety-eight undergraduate students from Singapore participated in this study. First, states-of-mind ratio and positive automatic thoughts were positively correlated with life satisfaction and happiness, and negatively correlated with anxiety, depression, and anger. In contrast, negative automatic thoughts were positively correlated with anxiety, depression, and anger, and negatively correlated with life satisfaction and happiness. Second, the BSOM categories based depression-related automatic thoughts was able to significantly differentiate among levels of depression, happiness, life satisfaction, anxiety, and anger in ANOVA and in terms of variance accounted for as indicated by partial Eta squared. Third, the BSOM ratio was the best predictor for happiness and life satisfaction and second best predictor for depression, anxiety, and anger in terms of variance accounted for as indicated by adjusted R², in comparison to the negative cognition model and positive cognition model. Fourth, both ANOVA results and multiple regression results showed that there is cognitive content-specificity for the BSOM based on depression-related automatic thoughts. Implications and limitations of these findings were discussed.