Epidemiological Dimensions of Social Anhedonia Research-Article7737402018
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CPXXXX10.1177/2167702618773740Dodell-Feder, GermineEpidemiological Dimensions of Social Anhedonia 773740research-article2018 ASSOCIATION FOR Brief Empirical Report PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Clinical Psychological Science 2018, Vol. 6(5) 735 –743 Epidemiological Dimensions of © The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Social Anhedonia DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702618773740 10.1177/2167702618773740 www.psychologicalscience.org/CPS David Dodell-Feder 1 and Laura Germine2,3 1Department of Psychology, University of Rochester; 2Institute for Technology in Psychiatry, McLean Hospital; and 3Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Abstract Social anhedonia (SA)—reduced drive for and pleasure from social interaction—is associated with social/emotional dysfunction and risk for psychopathology. However, our understanding of the factors that contribute to variation in SA remains limited. Here, we investigate the epidemiology of SA in an international population-based sample of more than 19,000 individuals who completed the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale through TestMyBrain.org. We find that SA exhibits considerable variation over the life span and is higher in males versus females, people of lower socioeconomic status, those of African ethnicity, nonmigrants, and people living in ethnically dense locations and less urban environments. Gender, socioeconomic status, and urbanicity were the only factors that captured unique variance in SA. These findings provide a framework for understanding how variation in epidemiological factors contribute to variation in elemental building blocks of psychopathology, and demonstrate the utility of using big data approaches toward the study of risk and Research Domain Criteria dimensions. Keywords social anhedonia, social processes, schizophrenia, Research Domain Criteria, epidemiology, open data Received 10/2/17; Revision accepted 4/3/18 Our nature as social animals is to interact, bond, and 2007; Gooding, Davidson, Putnam, & Tallent, 2002; form enduring connections with one another. Indeed, Kwapil, Brown, Silvia, Myin-Germeys, & Barrantes-Vidal, decades of research have shown that human beings 2012); less social skill, contact, interest, and pleasure exhibit a fundamental need to belong, that is, a consti- (Brown et al., 2007; Kwapil et al., 2009; Kwapil et al., tutional motivation to be with others (Baumeister & 2012; Llerena, Park, Couture, & Blanchard, 2012); and Leary, 1995; Silvia & Kwapil, 2011). However, motiva- less social support and social coping strategies (Blanchard tion for and enjoyment of social interaction vary from et al., 2011; Horan, Brown, & Blanchard, 2007). person to person. Given the importance of social con- Beyond impaired social and emotional functioning, nection for mental and physical health and well-being SA represents a major component of schizotypy, a mul- (Cacioppo, Hawkley, Norman, & Berntson, 2011), the tidimensional construct involving schizophrenia-like consequences of this variation can be profound. phenomena that is thought to index vulnerability for Consider the phenomenon of social anhedonia schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (Kwapil, Barrantes- (SA)—the reduced drive for and pleasure from social Vidal, & Silvia, 2007). In line with this idea, high levels interaction. Socially anhedonic people experience a of SA and concomitant social withdrawal prospectively genuine preference for solitude and disinterest in social predict schizophrenia-spectrum disorders years later interaction that cannot be attributed to social anxiety (Gooding, Tallent, & Matts, 2005; Kwapil, 1998; Tarbox or social exclusion (Brown, Silvia, Myin-Germeys, & Kwapil, 2007). SA is associated with a variety of social and emotional difficulties including less daily and trait Corresponding Author: David Dodell-Feder, Department of Psychology, University of positive affect and more negative affect (Blanchard, Rochester, 453 Meliora Hall, Rochester, NY 14627 Collins, Aghevli, Leung, & Cohen, 2011; Brown et al., E-mail: [email protected] 736 Dodell-Feder, Germine & Pogue-Geile, 2008). SA also represents a major patho- Our data collection relied on web-based survey physiological component of schizophrenia-spectrum methods through the noncommercial research website disorders (Horan, Blanchard, Clark, & Green, 2008). In TestMyBrain.org to reach a large and diverse sample those diagnosed with a schizophrenia-spectrum disor- that would not have been feasible with geographically der, SA is trait like, remaining stable over time despite restricted in-person testing. Prior work has demon- fluctuations in symptoms (Blanchard, Horan, & Brown, strated that data collected from such participants are 2001), and is associated with reduced positive reactions highly reliable and comparable in quality to data col- and willingness to interact with social partners lected in traditional lab or clinic settings (Germine (Blanchard, Park, Catalano, & Bennett, 2015; McCarthy et al., 2012; Soto, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2011), and et al., 2018), general social dysfunction (Blanchard mirror findings from nationally representative population- et al., 2001; McCarthy et al., 2018), and neural abnor- based samples (Hartshorne & Germine, 2015). Thus, our malities in social cognitive processes (Dodell-Feder, sample provides a reasonable starting point for estimates Tully, Lincoln, & Hooker, 2014). of the relation between epidemiological factors and SA Given SA’s role in risk for schizophrenia-spectrum at the population level. disorders, possibly through its association with schizo- typy, and SA’s contribution to social and emotional difficulties in those with and without these conditions, Methods it is critical to understand risk factors for SA. However, Participants our understanding of the variation in SA and the con- texts in which it is most likely to manifest is limited. As Our sample was 19,432 international participants, our field moves toward a dimension-based framework 36.41% of whom were from the United States (54.79% of psychopathology as outlined by NIMH’s Research were from predominantly English-speaking countries Domain Criteria (RDoC), it is incumbent on us to under- including the United States; Table 1). Additional infor- stand the etiology of those dimensions, just as decades mation regarding our sample is included in the Supple- of prior research have endeavored to understand the mental Material available online. Participants provided etiology of categorical nosological entities. As a com- informed consent by electronically signing a form prior ponent of the RDoC Affiliation and Attachment subcon- to participation. The study was approved by the Har- struct within Social Processes, SA is conceptually vard University Institutional Review Board. simpler than schizophrenia and schizotypy, and may Given the geographic diversity of our participants more precisely reflect relevant dimensions underlying (Table 1), we evaluated the effect of location on SA and its heterogeneity. Greater understanding of how SA var- found a main effect of continent, F(5, 16,316) = 11.03, p < ies may in turn provide more precise etiological path- .001, η2 = .003, such that individuals from the continents ways leading to severe psychopathology, that is, why a of Australia/Oceania, Europe, and North America disorder like schizophrenia occurs from disturbances reported less SA than individuals from the continent of in elemental perceptual, cognitive, and motivational Africa (ps < .002, d = .23–.30, common language effect systems. size [CLES] = 41.56%–43.56%) and Asia (ps < .001, d = Here, we evaluate a population-based sample of .12–.20, CLES = 44.33%–46.60%). The effect of continent more than 19,000 international participants to uncover did not interact with other variables that might affect the the epidemiological dimensions of SA: a phenomenon expression of SA, including ethnicity, F(26, 13,414) = 1.44, that may lie along the causal pathway from elemental p = .070, and migrant status, F(5, 15,236) = 1.89, p = .092, social processes to the expression of psychopathology. suggesting that the effects of ethnicity and migrant status Specifically, we investigate whether SA, as measured were relatively stable across geographic location. To fur- by the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (Eckblad, Chapman, ther evaluate the possible moderating effect of partici- Chapman, & Mishlove, 1982), is associated with age, gen- pant location, for the ethnicity and migrant status analyses, der, socioeconomic status (i.e., education and median we conducted additional analyses from predominantly income of the city in which the participant completed English-speaking/European ethnicity countries described the questionnaire; henceforth, “community income”), in the following sections. ethnicity, and, given the link among SA, schizotypy, and schizophrenia, other factors that have been shown to Social anhedonia influence risk for schizophrenia, including migrant sta- tus, ethnic density (i.e., the proportion of residents in SA was assessed with the 40-item Revised Social Anhedo- a participant’s city that belong to the participant’s ethnic nia Scale (RSAS; Eckblad et al., 1982). The RSAS is a self- group), and urbanicity. report measure designed to assess social amotivation/ Epidemiological Dimensions of Social Anhedonia 737 Table 1. Participant Characteristics and Analysis Sample Sizes Variable Analysis N n (%) M (SD) [range] Continent 16,322 Africa 261 (1.60) Asia 2,612 (16.00) Australia/Oceania 744 (4.56) Europe