Social Feedback Perception in Adolescents With Major Depressive Disorder: A Potential Marker of Depression

Depression hinders adolescent development and contributes to lifelong psychosocial difficulties. Given adolescents' heightened sensitivity to social feedback, understanding how depression affects their perception of such feedback is essential for supporting their transition to adulthood.

To address the issue, we engaged 33 adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 33 non-depressed peers in rating self-referential praise, criticism, and neutral descriptions.

Results showed that MDD patients relative to controls perceived praise less pleasant (F_1,64 = 26.162, p < 0.001, ${\eta }_p^2$ = 0.25) and less acceptable as truly describing their attributes (F_1,64 = 66.768, p < 0.001, ${\eta }_p^2$ = 0.511) while they viewed criticism more acceptable (F_1,64 = 31.562, p < 0.001, ${\eta }_p^2$ = 0.33) despite the absence of group differences in pleasantness. Critically, with anxiety controlled, group differences in pleasantness disappeared but those in acceptance persisted such that MDD patients exhibited decreased acceptance of praise (F_1,60 = 6.619, p = 0.013, ${\eta }_p^2$  = 0.099) and increased acceptance of criticism (F_1,60 = 5.008, p = 0.029, ${\eta }_p^2$ = 0.077).

These findings highlight the potential of assessing attitudes toward praise and criticism in everyday interactions as an implicit and efficient measure of adolescent depression while minimising anxiety-related confounds.