Abstract Although empirical evidence suggests that global hopelessness differenti- ates depression from anxiety, the degree to which depressed and anxious patients endorse hopelessness about specific life events has yet to be investigated. In the present study, outpatients with major depression (n = 64), outpatients with general- ized anxiety disorder (n = 29), and outpatients with other psychiatric disorders (n = 56) completed the Imagined Outcome Test, in which they described the personal problem that was most distressing to them, imagined the worst and best possible outcomes, and rated the likelihood that these outcomes would actually occur. Depressed outpatients rated worst outcomes as being more likely and best outcomes as being less likely than outpatients in the other two groups. Results support the hypothesis that hopelessness about the resolution of life problems is unique to depression. Keywords Cognition Æ Imagery Æ Major Depressive Disorder Æ Generalized Anxiety Disorder A. T. Beck (&) Æ A. Wenzel Psychopathology Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, Room 2029, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA e-mail: abeck@mail.med.upenn.edu J. H. Riskind George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444, USA G. Brown Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK R. A. Steer School of Osteopathic Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Stratford, NJ 08084, USA Cogn Ther Res (2006) 30:773–781 DOI 10.1007/s10608-006-9081-2 123 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Specificity of Hopelessness about Resolving Life Problems: Another Test of the Cognitive Model of Depression Aaron T. Beck Æ Amy Wenzel Æ John H. Riskind Æ Gary Brown Æ Robert A. Steer Published online: 19 October 2006 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006