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Depression and Approach Motivation: Differential Relations to Monetary, Social, and Food Reward

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Abstract

Depression is associated with blunted reward functioning. It remains unknown, however, whether depression is linked to diminished motivation to approach reward across categories of reward stimuli, or if depression is differentially related to approach motivation. The current study tested associations between depression and behavioral approach motivation to specific reward stimuli (i.e., money, social, food reward). In a two-visit study, university females (N = 122, M age = 18.67) completed measures of depression and three behavioral approach motivation tasks (completed across visits). Differential findings emerged across behavioral reward tasks. Specifically, depressive symptoms were associated with decreased motivation to approach monetary and social reward but increased motivation to approach food reward. Results suggest a category-specific conceptualization of depressive symptomatology in relation to behavioral approach motivation, whereby women with elevated symptoms may be less likely to approach certain rewards, but more likely to approach others.

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Notes

  1. Although not tested in the current study, a sample negative feedback statement is This participant indicated they would “not at all” be willing to accept your friend request on Facebook. A sample neutral feedback statement is, This participant indicated you “slightly” remind them of their friends. Participants displayed a range of responses for positive (1–269, Med = 36.0), negative (1–238, Med = 28.0), and neutral (2–202, Med = 25.5) feedback.

  2. Depressive symptoms were unrelated to approach to neutral feedback (b = −.012, 95% CI [−.03, .01], suggesting that depression is uniquely related to approach to social reward rather than global approach to feedback. We chose not to control for neutral feedback in our analyses predicting social reward, given the high overlap between these variables (r = .75).

  3. Willingness to work tasks required effort expenditure to obtain a reward; therefore, relations between willingness to work for social and food reward were examined after removing CES-D items assessing psychomotor retardation (i.e., “I felt that everything I did was an effort,” “I could not get ‘going”). The mean of these items was not significantly related to willingness to work for social reward (b = −.16, 95% CI: −.39, .06) or food reward (b = .05, 95% CI: −.22, .32). When these items were removed and a new CES-D score was created, depressive symptoms were not significantly related to social reward (b = −.02, 95% CI: −.04, .01) or food reward (b = .02, 95% CI: −.001, .05) indicating that these items may play an important role contributing to the overall CES-D score.

  4. In the current study, the item assessing hypo-appetite symptoms on the CES-D (I did not feel like eating, my appetite was poor) was not significantly related to food reward (b = .15, 95% CI: −.07, .37). When this item was removed and a new CES-D sum score created, scores did not significantly relate to food reward (b = .02, 95% CI: −.01, .04) suggesting that this item, alone, does not predict approach to food reward, though it appears to contribute meaningfully to total CES-D scores.

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  1. Psychology Department, Miami University, 100 Psychology Building, 90 N. Patterson, Oxford, OH, 45056, USA

    Lauren M. Fussner, Kathryn J. Mancini & Aaron M. Luebbe

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Lauren M. Fussner, Kathryn J. Mancini, and Aaron M. Luebbe declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. The authors report no conflict of interest.

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Fussner, L.M., Mancini, K.J. & Luebbe, A.M. Depression and Approach Motivation: Differential Relations to Monetary, Social, and Food Reward. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 40, 117–129 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-017-9620-z

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