Hedonic deficit in anhedonia: support for the role of approach motivation

Anhedonia is defined as the diminished capacity to experience pleasure. However, previous research comparing the response of high and low scorers on the Scale for Physical Anhedonia (Chapman, L. J., Chapman, J.P., & Raulin, M.L. (1976). Scales for physical and social anhedonia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 85 (4), 374–382) to positive emotion-eliciting stimuli has not produced consistent support for hedonic deficit in anhedonia. Basing hypotheses on a neurobehavioral model of positive affect, the present study examined both hedonic experience and the proposed motivational substrates of hedonic experience in anhedonia. Specifically, to examine the linkage between anhedonia, approach motivation, and positive affect, 339 participants completed measures designed to assess these constructs. A subset of these participants, who were either high or low scorers on the Scale for Physical Anhedonia, also rated their affective response to positive, negative, and neutral sensory stimuli. Although anhedonia was associated with diminished general positive affect, diminished intensity of emotional experience, and diminished self-report of approach motivation, it was unrelated to participantsʹ self-report of emotional experience to sensory stimuli. However, a measure of approach motivation was significantly related to self-report of positive emotional experience to sensory cues and stimuli, suggesting that approach motivation may be a better index of hedonic deficit than a commonly used anhedonia measure.