Adaptive Suppression of Motivational Biases Increases With Mood/Anxiety Traits

Changes in motivational biases appear to be central to many psychiatric disorders including depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Motivational biases, theorized to embody default response strategies helpful in uncertain or novel situations, invigorate responding when we are promised rewards and hold us back when we are facing punishment. However, it remains unclear how specific changes in biases are to certain disorders. Here, we relate motivational biases to continuous, dimensional measures of psychiatric symptoms, focusing on anxiety and depression (AD) and compulsions and intrusive thoughts (CIT).

We recruited 500 participants online from the general population. Participants performed a motivational Go/NoGo task, a global measure of cognitive ability (the International Cognitive Ability Resource test), and clinical questionnaires. We used factor analysis, mixed-effects models, and computational modeling to link transdiagnostic symptom dimensions to motivational biases.

Higher AD symptoms predicted better performance on trials where action requirements are not aligned with motivational biases, requiring their suppression. In contrast, higher CIT scores were associated with overall worse performance, likely reflecting a more general performance deficit. Higher AD symptoms were linked to a more frequent expression of a novel computational model capturing the trial-by-trial up- and downregulation of the impact of motivational biases. The opposite was found for the CIT dimension.

The dissociable patterns for AD and CIT suggest dimension-specific alterations in motivational bias rather than reflecting a generalized psychopathology factor. We speculate that individuals with AD, when required to exert effort, may recruit excessive cognitive effort to suppress motivational biases. This more controlled mode of decision making may improve performance, but it also exhausts participants and contributes to symptoms.