Future thinking is intimately linked with emotions, as projecting oneself into the future typically involves a construction of positive situations that one strives to achieve or negative situations that one seeks to avoid. Therefore, the current study evaluated eye movement during neutral, positive, and negative future thinking. We invited participants to imagine neutral, past, and negative future events while their scan path was recorded by an eye tracker. The analysis demonstrated more and shorter fixations during positive and negative emotional thinking than during neutral future thinking. No statistically significant differences were observed between neutral and positive or negative future thinking regarding the number, duration, or amplitude of the saccades. Comparisons between positive and negative future thinking demonstrated no significant differences on the characteristics of fixations or saccades. Compared to neutral future thinking, emotional future thinking may involve less complex visual representation. However, positive and negative future thinking may trigger similar processing of visual representations.

Hope, defined as a cognitive set of beliefs concerning goal-related activities and comprising agency thinking and pathways thinking, is considered both as a relatively stable disposition and as a momentary state. To expand knowledge on state hope, we validated its measure by testing alternative factorial models. With two cross-sectional studies, we aimed to validate the factorial structure of the Polish version of the State Hope Scale (SHS-PL). Study 1 involved 242 Polish employees (158 women) aged 18–64 years, and Study 2 involved 953 Polish adults (704 women) aged 18 to 75 years. The results demonstrated that the bifactor model was the best representation of the structure of state hope. It simultaneously captures the global aspect of state hope and its two specific dimensions: agency and pathways. The results also revealed that the SHS-PL scores showed full scalar invariance across genders and across two age groups. Finally, the total score as well as the agency and pathways scales achieved acceptable levels of reliability (in both studies, the Cronbach's α coefficient was greater than .85 for all scales) and validity: Correlations of the SHSPL scores with dispositional hope and with positive and negative affect conformed to the theoretically expected pattern of results. The results provide evidence supporting the postulated structure of state hope and validate the new Polish-language version of its measure.

A screening assessment of anxiety and depressive symptoms is of great importance for preventing mental health problems. The current study aimed to (a) examine the factor structure, measurement invariance, reliability, and temporal stability of the Polish version of the Patient Health Questionnaire– 4 (PHQ–4) developed for measuring anxiety and depressive symptoms, (b) estimate the prevalence of these symptoms in different age and gender groups from February to July 2022, and (c) identify latent subpopulations of females and males based on their anxiety and depressive symptom levels. The sample included 2557 Polish adults (1730 females, 811 males, and 16 non-binary individuals) aged 18–78 (M = 27.18, SD = 12.29). The Polish version of the PHQ–4 was used. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis and latent profile analysis (LPA) were carried out. The Polish version of the PHQ–4 had an intended two-factor structure, was invariant across age and gender categories, and in general, displayed strong psychometric properties. Based on the cut-off scores for the anxiety and depression subscales of ≥3, more than half of females and males in three age groups (aged 18–29, 30–44, and 45–59) were screened positively for anxiety and/or depression, and more than one-third of females aged 60–78 and males aged 60–76 were screened positively for both disorders. We distinguished (by LPA) and described four subpopulations common for both females and males. We identified risk groups for mental disorders (females, males aged 30–44, non-binary and younger people in general, as well as unemployed, less educated, and single people). The prevalence of probable anxiety and depressive disorders in the Polish population is extremely high. It is necessary to provide further mental health monitoring.