The Associations between Multidimensional Defeatist Performance Beliefs and Anhedonia in Early Psychosis: An...

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Negative symptoms in schizophrenia, like anhedonia, are linked to defeatist performance beliefs (DPB).
• Specific dimensions of DPB and their association with daily pleasure remain understudied.
• Experience sampling methodology (ESM) can assess momentary pleasure in real-world contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the associations between multidimensional DPB and momentary pleasure in early psychosis (EP) patients and healthy controls (HC).
• To investigate how activity type and social context influence these associations.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-three EP patients and 35 HC completed ESM 10 times daily for 6 days.
• Participants reported momentary consummatory and anticipatory pleasure, activity type, and social company.
• Multidimensional DPB was assessed at baseline; multilevel modeling analyzed the data.

Main Results:

• Across groups, overvaluing success and failure DPB were negatively associated with momentary pleasure.
• EP patients showed a stronger negative association between overvaluing failure DPB and pleasure during functional activities.
• This pattern extended to anticipating functional activities.

Conclusions:

• Specific DPB dimensions are distinctly associated with daily pleasure.
• Targeting overvaluing failure DPB may reduce anhedonia during functional activities in EP patients.
• This could potentially enhance overall patient functioning.