Social cognition and social motivation in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: are impairments linked to the disorder or to being socially isolated?

BACKGROUND: People with schizophrenia on average are more socially isolated, lonelier, have more social cognitive impairment, and are less socially motivated than healthy individuals. People with bipolar disorder also have social isolation, though typically less than that seen in schizophrenia. We aimed to disentangle whether the social cognitive and social motivation impairments observed in schizophrenia are a specific feature of the clinical condition v. social isolation generally. METHODS: We compared four groups (clinically stable patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, individuals drawn from the community with self-described social isolation, and a socially connected community control group) on loneliness, social cognition, and approach and avoidance social motivation. RESULTS: Individuals with schizophrenia (n = 72) showed intermediate levels of social isolation, loneliness, and social approach motivation between the isolated (n = 96) and connected control (n = 55) groups. However, they showed significant deficits in social cognition compared to both community groups. Individuals with bipolar disorder (n = 48) were intermediate between isolated and control groups for loneliness and social approach. They did not show deficits on social cognition tasks. Both clinical groups had higher social avoidance than both community groups. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, and high social avoidance motivation in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are distinct features of the clinical conditions and not byproducts of social isolation. In contrast, differences between clinical and control groups on levels of loneliness and social approach motivation were congruent with the groups' degree of social isolation.

Testing the social motivation theory of autism: the role of co-occurring anxiety.

BACKGROUND: The Social Motivation Theory proposes that social reward processing differences underlie autism. However, low social motivation has also been linked to higher anxiety. Given the co-occurrence between autism and anxiety, it is possible that anxiety drives the association between social motivation and autistic characteristics. This study tests the mechanisms underlying the association between social motivation and autistic traits. METHODS: Participants were 165 adolescents (71 male), aged 10-16 years, from the Mapping profiles of cognition, motivation and attention in childhood (C-MAPS) study, enriched for autistic traits (70 participants with an autism diagnosis, 37 male). Participants completed a battery of online experimental tasks, including a Choose-a-Movie social motivation task and social cognition measures (theory of mind; emotion recognition), alongside parent-reported child anxiety and autistic traits. RESULTS: Higher social motivation was significantly associated with lower autistic traits (ß = -.26, p < .001). Controlling for social cognition did not change the association between social motivation and autistic traits. Controlling for anxiety did significantly reduce the strength of the association (unstandardized coefficient change: p = .003), although social motivation remained associated with autistic traits (ß = -.16, p = .004). Post hoc analyses demonstrated differential sex-effects: The association between social motivation and autistic traits was significant only in the females (ß = -.38, p < .001), as was the attenuation by anxiety (unstandardized coefficient change: p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: The association between social motivation and autistic traits could be partially attributed to co-occurring anxiety. Sex-specific effects found in females may be due to environmental factors such as increased social demands in adolescent female relationships. Results are consistent with self-report by autistic individuals who do not identify as having reduced social motivation.

The social phenotype associated with Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome: Autistic traits juxtaposed with high social drive and prosociality.

The aim of this study was to provide a descriptive overview of the social characteristics associated with Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome (WSS). A total of 24 parents of children/adults with WSS (11F, mean age = 12.94 years, SD = 8.00) completed the Social Responsiveness Scale 2nd Edition (SRS-2); Colorado Learning Difficulties Questionnaire (CLDQ) and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Almost half our sample reported a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 70% had intellectual disability. On the SDQ, over 90% of participants were rated in borderline/clinical ranges in Peer Problems, yet the majority fell within normal limits in Prosocial Behaviors. Most fell in the moderate/severe difficulties ranges across SRS-2 Social Cognition, Communication, and Restricted/Repetitive Behaviors scales (all >70%); whereas substantially less participants met these ranges for deficits in Social Awareness (50%) and Social Motivation (33.33%). A pattern of relatively strong prosocial skills and social drive in the context of difficulties with inflexible behaviors, social cognition, and communication was observed, regardless of gender, ASD or intellectual disability diagnosis. The social phenotype associated with WSS is characterized by some autistic features paired with unusually high social motivation and prosocial tendencies.

Quantifying latent social motivation and its associations with joint attention and language in infants at high and low likelihood for autism spectrum disorder.

Social motivation-the psychobiological predisposition for social orienting, seeking social contact, and maintaining social interaction-manifests in early infancy and is hypothesized to be foundational for social communication development in typical and atypical populations. However, the lack of infant social-motivation measures has hindered delineation of associations between infant social motivation, other early-arising social abilities such as joint attention, and language outcomes. To investigate how infant social motivation contributes to joint attention and language, this study utilizes a mixed longitudinal sample of 741 infants at high (HL = 515) and low (LL = 226) likelihood for ASD. Using moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA), we incorporated items from parent-report measures to establish a novel latent factor model of infant social motivation that exhibits measurement invariance by age, sex, and familial ASD likelihood. We then examined developmental associations between 6- and 12-month social motivation, joint attention at 12-15 months, and language at 24 months of age. On average, greater social-motivation growth from 6-12 months was associated with greater initiating joint attention (IJA) and trend-level increases in sophistication of responding to joint attention (RJA). IJA and RJA were both positively associated with 24-month language abilities. There were no additional associations between social motivation and future language in our path model. These findings substantiate a novel, theoretically driven approach to modeling social motivation and suggest a developmental cascade through which social motivation impacts other foundational skills. These findings have implications for the timing and nature of intervention targets to support social communication development in infancy. HIGHLIGHTS: We describe a novel, theoretically based model of infant social motivation wherein multiple parent-reported indicators contribute to a unitary latent social-motivation factor. Analyses revealed social-motivation factor scores exhibited measurement invariance for a longitudinal sample of infants at high and low familial ASD likelihood. Social-motivation growth from ages 6-12 months is associated with better 12-15-month joint attention abilities, which in turn are associated with greater 24-month language skills. Findings inform timing and targets of potential interventions to support healthy social communication in the first year of life.

Young children use imitation communicatively.

There is growing evidence that children imitate not just to learn from others but also to affiliate socially with them. However, although imitation can convey a wealth of affiliative information to others, it is not yet known whether imitators intend for this to be the case. In particular, we do not know whether children imitate communicatively in some contexts, expending extra effort to make sure that the demonstrator sees their imitation. Here, in two experiments (N = 20 and N = 48, respectively), we tested whether preschool-age children modify their imitation when needed to ensure that the demonstrator sees it. In each trial, children were shown a demonstration. Then, for their response, in one condition a barrier obscured the demonstrator's view of children's imitation unless children raised their arms above the barrier while imitating. In the other condition the demonstrator was able to see children's imitation without any additional effort from children. Results from both experiments showed that children were significantly more likely to imitate with their arms raised when their actions would otherwise be obscured from view. In the second experiment, we also coded for other communicative behaviors (e.g., social smiles, eye contact, showing gestures) and found that children often displayed communicative behaviors while imitating, as expected, in both conditions. Thus, young children actively use imitation communicatively in some contexts.

Blend in or stand out: social anxiety levels shape information-sharing strategies.

Although living in social groups provides many benefits for group members, such groups also serve as a setting for social competition over rank and influence. Evolutionary accounts suggest that social anxiety plays a role in regulating in-group conflict, as individuals who are concerned about social threat may choose to defer to others to maintain the hierarchical status quo. Here, we examine how social anxiety levels are related to the advice-giving style an individual adopts: a competitive influence-seeking strategy or a defensive blend-in strategy. We begin by demonstrating that similarity to others drives activity in the brain's valuation system, even during a competitive advice-taking task. Then, in three behavioural experiments, we show that social anxiety levels are related to the tendency to give advice resembling the advice given by rival advisers and to refrain from status-seeking behaviour. Social anxiety was also associated with negative social comparisons with rival advisers. Our findings highlight the role of competing social goals in shaping information sharing.

Willing and able? Theory of mind, social motivation, and social competence in middle childhood and early adolescence.

This study investigated the links between theory of mind, social motivation, and children's social competence in middle childhood and early adolescence. Two hundred and sixty four children (136 girls, 128 boys) aged between 8 and 13 years (M Age = 10.88 years, SD = 1.45) completed theory-of-mind tests and self-report questionnaires measuring social motivation. Teachers rated children's social competence at school. Teacher-rated social competence was associated with individual differences in both theory of mind and children's motivation to develop and maintain social relationships. Results suggest that while individual differences in social motivation and theory of mind are partially overlapping, both theory of mind ability and social motivation contribute to successful social interaction at school.

Social motivation in infancy is associated with familial recurrence of ASD.

Pre-diagnostic deficits in social motivation are hypothesized to contribute to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a heritable neurodevelopmental condition. We evaluated psychometric properties of a social motivation index (SMI) using parent-report item-level data from 597 participants in a prospective cohort of infant siblings at high and low familial risk for ASD. We tested whether lower SMI scores at 6, 12, and 24 months were associated with a 24-month ASD diagnosis and whether social motivation's course differed relative to familial ASD liability. The SMI displayed good internal consistency and temporal stability. Children diagnosed with ASD displayed lower mean SMI T-scores at all ages and a decrease in mean T-scores across age. Lower group-level 6-month scores corresponded with higher familial ASD liability. Among high-risk infants, strong decline in SMI T-scores was associated with 10-fold odds of diagnosis. Infant social motivation is quantifiable by parental report, differentiates children with versus without later ASD by age 6 months, and tracks with familial ASD liability, consistent with a diagnostic and susceptibility marker of ASD. Early decrements and decline in social motivation indicate increased likelihood of ASD, highlighting social motivation's importance to risk assessment and clarification of the ontogeny of ASD.

Rhesus monkey sociality is stable across time and linked to variation in the initiation but not receipt of prosocial behavior.

Rhesus monkeys and humans are highly social primates, yet both species exhibit pronounced variation in social functioning, spanning a spectrum of sociality. Naturally occurring low sociality in rhesus monkeys may be a promising construct by which to model social impairments relevant to human autism spectrum disorder (ASD), particularly if low sociality is found to be stable across time and associated with diminished social motivation. Thus, to better characterize variation in sociality and social communication profiles, we performed quantitative social behavior assessments on N = 95 male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) housed in large, outdoor groups. In Study 1, we determined the social classification of our subjects by rank-ordering their total frequency of nonsocial behavior. Monkeys with the greatest frequency of nonsocial behavior were classified as low-social (n = 20) and monkeys with the lowest frequency of nonsocial behavior were classified as high-social (n = 21). To assess group differences in social communication profiles, in Study 2, we quantified the rates of transient social communication signals, and whether these social signals were initiated by or directed towards the focal subject. Finally, in Study 3, we assessed the within-individual stability of sociality in a subset of monkeys (n = 11 low-social, n = 11 high-social) two years following our initial observations. Nonsocial behavior frequency significantly correlated across the two timepoints (Studies 1 and 3). Likewise, low-social versus high-social classification accurately predicted classification two years later. Low-social monkeys initiated less prosocial behavior than high-social monkeys, but groups did not differ in receipt of prosocial behavior, nor did they differ in threat behavior. These findings indicate that sociality is a stable, trait-like characteristic and that low sociality is linked to diminished initiation of prosocial behavior in rhesus macaques. This evidence also suggests that low sociality may be a useful construct for gaining mechanistic insight into the social motivational deficits often observed in people with ASD.

Parsing social motivation: development and validation of a self-report measure of social effort.

BACKGROUND: Reduced efforts to form and maintain social bonds can exist in the context of a sufficient desire for social connection. Thus, social impairment common across many psychiatric conditions may often reflect failures in social effort exertion, despite normative levels of social liking and wanting. Although there are many questionnaires available that assess sociability, desire, or lack thereof for connection and perceived social support, there is no current self-report assessment of the behavioral outputs of social motivation. AIMS: We aimed to develop and validate a measure of the social effort in college students and the general population. METHODS: College students (n = 981) and a broader sample of adults via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk; n = 506) participated in the study. RESULTS: We identified two factors that represented content related to general social effort and social effort in adherence with social norms; we named the measure the Social Effort and Conscientiousness Scale (SEACS). Results suggest the SEACS is a reliable and valid measure of social effort. CONCLUSIONS: Lower scores on the SEACS were associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, highlighting the scale's potential utility in clinical populations. We include a discussion of possible applications of the SEACS, including its further use and application in psychopathology research.

Social and Nonsocial Reward Anticipation in Typical Development and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Current Status and Future Directions.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: While there has been sustained interest in understanding the role of reward processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), researchers are just beginning to focus on the anticipation phase of reward processing in this population. This review aimed to briefly summarize recent advancements in functional imaging studies of anticipatory social and nonsocial reward processing in individuals with and without ASD and provide suggestions for avenues of future research. RECENT FINDINGS: Reward salience and activation of the complex network of brain regions supporting reward anticipation vary across development and by important demographic characteristics, such as sex assigned at birth. Current research comparing social and nonsocial reward anticipation may possess confounds related to the mismatch in tangibility and salience of social and nonsocial experimental stimuli. Growing evidence suggests individuals with ASD demonstrate aberrant generalized reward anticipation that is not specific to social reward. Future research should carefully match social and nonsocial reward stimuli and consider employing a longitudinal design to disentangle the complex processes contributing to the development of reward anticipation. It may be useful to conceptualize differences in reward anticipation as a transdiagnostic factor, rather than an ASD-specific deficit.

Asexual Identity, Personality, and Social Motivations in a New Zealand National Sample.

Growing research interest in asexuality has led to several notable findings around the differences between asexual people and those with other sexual orientations. These findings have recently extended to personality, but questions remain around differences in personality between asexual people and others. Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative research disagrees about whether asexual people are less interested in close relationships than others. This paper used data from a nationally representative sample of self-identified asexual participants (Analysis 1: nwomen = 216, nmen = 54, ngender diverse = 13; Analysis 2: nwomen = 53, nmen = 19, ngender diverse = 3) and matched samples of heterosexual and lesbian, gay, and bisexual/plurisexual (LGB) participants (N's = 75-283) drawn from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (Ns = 19,396-54,183) to explore personality (Analysis 1) and approach and avoidance social motivations (Analysis 2). Compared to heterosexuals, asexual participants reported significantly lower extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and higher emotionality, openness, and honesty-humility. Compared to those who identified as LGB, asexual participants reported significantly lower extraversion and agreeableness and higher honesty-humility. In addition, asexual participants scored significantly lower on approach (but not avoidance) social motivation than both heterosexual and LGB participants, indicating that they are less motivated to enhance positive experiences and behavior in their social relationships. These results help to clarify how personality and social motivations covary with sexual identity.

Deprivation of direct adult contact during development affects social representation in a songbird.

Social cognition involves a wide array of skills that are built largely through interactions with conspecifics and therefore depend upon early social experience. Motivation for social stimuli is a key feature of social behavior and an operant conditioning task showed that isolated wild-caught adult starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are highly motivated to access pictures of other starlings. Here, we show that hand-raised adult starlings maintained in groups of peers throughout development but without any contact with adult models were not or only poorly motivated to access pictures of conspecifics. Moreover, they did not prefer pictures of starlings to pictures of landscapes, unlike birds wild-caught as adults. These results raise questions about the role of social experience during development, particularly with adult models, in the development of social motivation and of social representation in general.

Examining the value of body gestures in social reward contexts.

Brain regions associated with the processing of tangible rewards (such as money, food, or sex) are also involved in anticipating social rewards and avoiding social punishment. To date, studies investigating the neural underpinnings of social reward have presented feedback via static or dynamic displays of faces to participants. However, research demonstrates that participants find another type of social stimulus, namely, biological motion, rewarding as well, and exert effort to engage with this type of stimulus. Here we examine whether feedback presented via body gestures in the absence of facial cues also acts as a rewarding stimulus and recruits reward-related brain regions. To achieve this, we investigated the neural underpinnings of anticipating social reward and avoiding social disapproval presented via gestures alone, using a social incentive delay task. As predicted, the anticipation of social reward and avoidance of social disapproval engaged reward-related brain regions, including the nucleus accumbens, in a manner similar to previous studies' reports of feedback presented via faces and money. This study provides the first evidence that human body motion alone engages brain regions associated with reward processing in a similar manner to other social (i.e. faces) and non-social (i.e. money) rewards. The findings advance our understanding of social motivation in human perception and behavior.

Distinct neural correlates of social and object reward seeking motivation.

The "Choose-a-Movie-CAM" is an established task to quantify the motivation for seeking social rewards. It allows participants to directly assess both the stimulus value and the effort required to obtain it. In the present study, we aimed to identify the neural mechanisms of such cost-benefit decision-making. To this end, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging data were collected from 24 typical adults while they completed the CAM task. We partly replicated the results from our previous behavioural studies showing that typical adults prefer social over object stimuli and low effort over higher effort stimuli but found no interaction between the two. Results from neuroimaging data suggest that there are distinct neural correlates for social and object preferences. The precuneus and medial orbitofrontal cortex, two key areas involved in social processing are engaged when participants make a social choice. Areas of the ventral and dorsal stream pathways associated with object recognition are engaged when making an object choice. These activations can be seen during the decision phase even before the rewards have been consumed, indicating a transfer the hedonic properties of social stimuli to its cues. We also found that the left insula and bilateral clusters in the inferior occipital gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule were recruited for increasing effort investment. We discuss limitations and implications of this study which reveals the distinct neural correlates for social and object rewards, using a robust behavioural measure of social motivation.

Adapting social conditioned place preference for use in young children.

OBJECTIVE: Social-emotional processing is key to daily interactions and routines, yet a challenging construct to quantify. Measuring social and emotional processing in young children, children with language impairments, or non-verbal children, presents additional challenges. This study addresses a pressing need for tools to probe internal responses such as feelings, drives, and motivations that do not rely on intact language skills. METHODS: In this study, we extend our recent success of inducing conditioned place preference (CPP) in children to demonstrate the success of using a social unconditioned stimulus in the CPP paradigm in both typically developing children (n = 36) and in children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (n = 14). RESULTS: This is the first study to demonstrate successful social conditioned place preference in the human population. Both typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate significant social conditioned place preference by spending significantly more time in the room paired with social interaction following training. CONCLUSIONS: Significant heterogeneity of CPP scores in both groups of children indicates that social motivation is expressed along a continuum, and that the CPP paradigm may provide a more comprehensive characterization of social motivation beyond a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder for each child.

Out of mind, out of sight? Investigating abnormal face scanning in autism spectrum disorder using gaze-contingent paradigm.

Diminished social motivation is hypothesized to explain abnormal face scanning pattern in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially reduced eye-looking time in ASDs than typically developing (TD) people. Here, we tested an alternative explanation that children with ASD may use a compensatory strategy to avoid direct eye contact by processing the eyes through peripheral vision. We compared the face scanning patterns of children with and without ASD in two conditions: in the clear condition, the face was completely visible; in the blur condition, by using the gaze-contingent paradigm, the whole face was blurred except for a small region being fixated at, thus children could not rely on the peripheral information to process the eyes. We found that children with ASD fixated less on the eyes than TD children in both conditions. Temporal-course analyses further revealed the possible motivation-based guidance of attention to process the eyes in the TD group but not in the ASD group. Additionally, we found that children with ASD scanned faces more randomly and less strategically than TD children. These results have ruled out the alternative hypothesis that the abnormal face scanning pattern in ASDs was due to their compensatory strategy to process eyes through peripheral vision, furthering our understanding of the mechanisms underlying their abnormal face scanning.

Cross-cultural variation in how much, but not whether, children overimitate.

Children from Western industrialized populations tend to copy actions modeled by an adult with high fidelity even if these actions are functionally irrelevant. This so-called overimitation has been argued to be an important driver of cumulative cultural learning. However, cross-cultural and developmental evidence on overimitation is controversial, likely due to diverging task demands regarding children's attention and memory capabilities. Here, children from a recent hunter-gatherer population (Hai||om in Namibia) were compared with urban Western children (Germany) using an overimitation procedure with minimal cognitive task demands. Although the proportion of children engaging in any overimitation was similar across the two populations, German overimitators copied irrelevant actions more persistently across tasks. These results suggest that the influence of culture on children's overimitation may be one of degree, not kind.

Linking social motivation with social skill: The role of emotion dysregulation in autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with pervasive social deficits as well as marked emotion dysregulation across the life span. Decreased social motivation accounts in part for social difficulties, but factors moderating its influence are not fully understood. In this paper, we (a) characterize social and emotional functioning among children and adolescents with ASD, (b) explore contributions of social motivation and emotion dysregulation to social skill, and (c) consider biological sex and intellectual functioning as moderators of these associations. In a sample of 2,079 children and adolescents with ASD from the Simons Simplex Collection, we document direct effects of social motivation, internalizing symptoms, aggression, attention problems, irritability, and self-injurious behavior on children's social skills. Furthermore, dysregulation in several domains moderated the association between social motivation and social skill, suggesting a blunting effect on social motivation in the context of emotional difficulties. Moreover, when considering only individuals with intellectual skills in the average range or higher, biological sex further moderated these associations. Findings add to our understanding of social-emotional processes in ASD, suggest emotion dysregulation as a target of intervention in the service of social skill improvements, and build on efforts to understand sources of individual difference that contribute to heterogeneity among individuals with ASD.

Communicating Inequalities to Enhance Support for Obesity-Prevention Policies: The Role of Social Comparisons, Age Frames, and Emotion.

With certain populations in the United States at higher risk for obesity than other populations, public health advocates have attempted to draw attention to these inequalities to galvanize support for obesity-mitigation policies. Yet research comparing different messages about social inequalities indicates that not all social comparisons are persuasive. Drawing on Weiner's (1986) theory of perceived responsibility and social motivation, I experimentally tested promising message frames about obesity disparities. Participants (N = 653) read one of six messages following a 3 (social comparison frame: geographic vs. racial vs. no-comparison) × 2 (age frame: child vs. adult) between-subjects design. Unexpectedly, geographic frames (rural/urban) indirectly decreased policy support relative to the control frame by way of increased counterarguing. Compared to adult frames about obesity inequalities, childhood frames evoked more sympathy and less internal attribution, which in turn positively predicted support for obesity-prevention policies. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.