Increased affective reactivity among depressed individuals can be explained by floor effects: An experience sampling...

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Affective Science

Background:

• Depression is associated with altered affective reactivity to daily life events.
• Previous studies suggest heightened reactivity to both positive and negative stimuli in depressed individuals.
• Potential statistical artifacts, like floor/ceiling effects, may influence these findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of floor/ceiling effects on positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) reactivity in depression.
• To re-evaluate affective reactivity in depressed, remitted, and non-depressed individuals, considering statistical assumption violations.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 346 participants in the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA).
• Analyzed PA and NA reactivity to positive and negative events.
• Employed statistical models, addressing violations of normality and homoscedasticity assumptions caused by floor effects.

Main Results:

• Increased PA reactivity to positive events was observed in depressed and remitted groups compared to non-depressed individuals.
• NA scores exhibited a floor effect in the non-depressed group, violating model assumptions in initial analyses.
• After accounting for assumption violations, previously observed group differences in NA reactivity were no longer significant.

Conclusions:

• Depressed individuals exhibit increased PA reactivity to positive events.
• There is no evidence for increased NA reactivity in depressed individuals when statistical assumption violations are addressed.
• Affective reactivity findings are sensitive to statistical modeling choices, particularly concerning floor effects in NA.