Comparability of social anhedonia across epidemiological dimensions: A multinational study of measurement invariance of the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale.

Social anhedonia, or the loss of motivation in and pleasure from social engagement, is an important feature in understanding the etiology and outcome of various psychopathologies. While the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (RSAS) represents one of the most commonly used self-report measures of social anhedonia, little is known regarding the construct comparability across populations. We examined measurement invariance of the full and brief RSAS in a diverse, international sample of 14,064 participants across nine epidemiological dimensions, including gender, age, ethnicity, education, community income, continent, migrant status, ethnic density, and urbanicity. Both the full and brief RSAS, as represented by a three-factor structure, achieved metric invariance for all dimensions. The full version showed considerable scalar noninvariance for ethnicity and continent, which was significantly reduced in the brief version. These findings suggest that while the scales measure the same construct across diverse groups, mean comparisons are only appropriate for the brief, and not the full, version. Future research may consider using the brief RSAS to ensure cross-national comparability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

What you want may not be what you like: A test of the aberrant salience hypothesis in schizophrenia risk.

Motivational abnormalities represent a key area of dysfunction in individuals with, or at risk for, schizophrenia and severely limit broad domains of functioning in these populations. The aberrant salience hypothesis posits that motivational abnormalities are the result of an over-attribution of salience to nonpleasurable stimuli but an under-attribution of salience to pleasurable ones. Consequently, people "want" what they do not "like" but do not "want" what they "like." However, it is unclear how this hypothesis manifests in schizophrenia risk beyond monetary rewards. The current research provided a multimodal investigation of the aberrant salience hypothesis in people with elevated psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) who are at risk for developing psychosis. Study 1 examined the link between liking and incentive salience using a neurobiological indicator of incentive salience (contingent negative variation/CNV) in 23 PLEs and 21 Control participants. The PLEs group showed diminished CNV reactivity to pleasant (vs. neutral) social images, which was driven by an augmented response to neutral stimuli. Study 2 examined liking, incentive salience, and conscious wanting experience using a psychological indicator of incentive salience (positive spontaneous thoughts/PSTs) in 38 PLEs and 246 Control participants. The PLEs group showed diminished correspondence between liking, PSTs, and conscious wanting across diverse reward contexts. Collectively, individuals with PLEs over-attribute salience to neutral stimuli and, to a lesser degree, under-attribute salience to rewards. Findings of the current research support abnormal salience attribution as a trait-like feature implicated in the pathophysiology and development of schizophrenia and provide valuable insights on research and treatment of this illness.

Electrophysiological responses to images ranging in motivational salience: Attentional abnormalities associated with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder risk.

Individuals at risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders display abnormalities related to motivational salience, or the ability of stimuli to elicit attention due to associations with rewards or punishments. However, the nature of these abnormalities is unclear because most focus on responses to stimuli from broad "pleasant" and "unpleasant" categories and ignore the variation of motivational salience within these categories. In two groups at risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders-a Social Anhedonia group and a Psychotic-like Experiences group-and a control group, the current study examined event-related potential components sensitive to motivational salience-the Early Posterior Negativity (EPN), reflecting earlier selective attention, and the Late Positive Potential (LPP), reflecting sustained attention. Compared to controls, the Social Anhedonia group showed smaller increases in the EPN in response to erotica and smaller increases in the LPP as the motivational salience of pleasant images increased (exciting

Differential emotional abnormalities among schizotypy clusters.

Schizotypy, a multidimensional personality organization that reflects liability to develop schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, has been associated with a number of emotional abnormalities. Yet, the exact nature of any emotional abnormalities in schizotypy is relatively unclear. Using an ethnically diverse nonclinical sample (N = 2637), the present study identified homogenous clusters of individuals based on positive and negative schizotypy dimensions and explored three interrelated domains of emotion traits closely tied to functional outcomes and quality of life: affective experience, emotional awareness, and meta-level emotions. Consistent with prior research, four schizotypy clusters were obtained: low ("nonschizotypic"), high positive, high negative, and mixed (high positive and high negative). Regarding emotion correlates of schizotypy clusters, the mixed cluster was found to be the most deviant on almost all emotion traits (e.g., heightened trait negative affect, diminished emotional clarity), suggesting that the effects of positive and negative schizotypy are additive. In addition, positive and negative schizotypy clusters were associated with differential abnormalities, with the negative cluster presenting a wider range of, and more severe, impairments compared to the low cluster (e.g., reduced trait positive affect and reduced attention to positive emotion). The current study highlights the heterogeneity in emotional traits among schizotypy dimensions and the importance of studying the mixed schizotypy in terms of emotional dysfunction.

The subjective-objective deficit paradox in schizotypy extends to emotion regulation and awareness.

There is an emerging subjective-objective deficit paradox in schizotypy. Individuals with schizotypy report severe subjective complaints in several key functional domains commensurate with that of individuals with schizophrenia. However, objective assessments of the same domains show relatively intact performance. We examined whether this subjective-objective deficit paradox extends to two closely linked affective processes: emotion regulation and awareness. Individuals with elevated social anhedonia (SocAnh; n = 61) and elevated perceptual aberration/magical ideation (PerMag; n = 73) were compared to control participants (n = 81) on subjective and objective measures of emotion regulation and awareness. Subjective measures included self-report questionnaires assessing regulatory ability, attention to emotion, and emotional clarity. Implicit emotion regulation was assessed by the Emotion Regulation-Implicit Association Test (ER-IAT) while objective emotional awareness was assessed by the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), a performance-based test. Results showed that both SocAnh and PerMag groups reported notable deficits in almost all subjective measures relative to controls (composite ds > 0.55). In contrast, performance on ER-IAT and LEAS was very similar to controls (composite ds < 0.11). The current study suggests that the subjective-objective deficit paradox extends to emotion regulation and awareness, highlighting the importance of higher-order cognitive bias in understanding emotional abnormalities in schizotypy.