Does negative affective forecasting increase the risk of suicidal ideation?

Suicidal ideation is a key precursor to suicidal behaviour. It is therefore important that we identify factors that predict suicidal ideation. Affective Forecasting, estimations of future emotional reactions, is an important future-oriented process that underlies daily decision making and has potential to be implicated in the emergence of suicidal ideation. In this study, we aimed to test cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between negative affective forecasting towards various hypothetical future life events and test the moderating effect of negative affective forecasting on the association between depression, entrapment, and defeat and suicidal ideation. We used a short-term longitudinal design with data across two timepoints from a total of 262 participants aged between 18 and 81 (72.52% identified as females). Participants completed questionnaires online assessing depressive symptoms, defeat, entrapment, and suicidal ideation and indicated their negative affective predictions towards three hypothetical scenarios of future life events. Higher negativity in affective forecasting was cross-sectionally and longitudinally associated with higher levels of suicidal ideation at Time 1 and 2. Negative affective forecasting did not have significant main effects on suicidal ideation above and beyond known risk factors (i.e., depressive symptoms, defeat, and entrapment). However, negative affective forecasting moderated the effect of these risk factors on suicidal ideation, exacerbating the effect of these factors at higher levels of negative affective forecasting. In conclusion, we show that affective forecasting is an important factor that should be studied further in relation to suicide risk and considered in clinical interventions.