Dissociation of self-reported and observed pleasure in depression

Anhedonia, or the inability to experience pleasure, is an important component of depressive symptomatology. Observer ratings of positive affect and self-ratings of pleasurable experience were collected from ten depressed inpatients and ten ward staff members during the patients' base-line, medication-free period. Depressives were observed to display significantly lower degrees of positive affect than the normal group, but they reported significantly higher degrees of experienced pleasure. The normal group displayed positive affective behavior that was consistent with self-reported data. Thus, normal subjects showed synchronous, or associated self-reported and observed activity, whereas depressives appeared to be dissociated along those same dimensions. A dissociation also appeared in self-reports of positive versus negative mood states, suggesting the existence of a malfunction in these normally inhibitory affective mechanisms.