FILM-INDUCED EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE AND EXPRESSION IN SOCIAL ANHEDONIA

Abstract

Social anhedonia is an important feature of schizophrenia and it is a promising indicator of latent liability for the disorder. Although social anhedonia is defined as an affective construct, only a limited number of studies have investigated the affective and behavioral correlates of the construct. Studies that have looked at these variables have been limited by a lack of appropriate measures of affiliation, control for contributions of current depressive symptoms and inclusion of both male and female participants. The current study sought to extend past research by addressing the limitations listed above. A cohort of psychometrically identified social anhedonics and normally hedonic controls were identified from a large college sample. The participants completed a clinical interview and a series of questionnaires. The clinical interviews focused on current and past mood disorders, schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum personality disorders. The questionnaires focused on self-reports of current depressive symptoms and general tendencies to express emotion. The participants were then presented with a series of affect eliciting films clip during which their emotional expressions were recorded. After each film, they were asked to self report their affective state. Contrary to past studies and current hypothesizes social anhedonics did not differ from controls in terms of emotional experience or emotional expression. The lack of findings could be as a result of small sample sizes, lack of validated self-report measures of emotional experience, or the nature of the limited sample of behavior collected among other study limitations.