A study conducted on college students in Florida found that people with depression were less happy about surprising positive outcomes than people without depression. When these students performed better than expected on the midterm exam, their positive emotional reactions decreased. However, their negative emotional reactions to receiving a lower than expected grade were as strong as those of non-depressed students. This research psychiatry.
Depression is a common and serious mental health disorder characterized by persistent sadness, feelings of hopelessness, and lack of interest or enjoyment in activities. This affects the way a person thinks, feels, and behaves, and can cause physical symptoms such as changes in appetite, sleep problems, and fatigue. Depression can impair daily life, relationships, and work performance, making even simple tasks seem overwhelming. This is not a temporary emotional reaction to life events and often requires professional treatment.
Statistics show that approximately 7% of people in the United States suffer from depression each year. It is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. On average, people have about a 20% chance of developing depression at some point in their lives.
Study authors William J. Villano and Aaron S. Heller aimed to investigate how people with depression respond emotionally to personally significant life events. Because depression is a mood disorder, it was hypothesized that depressed people would exhibit dysregulated emotional responses.
To better understand this phenomenon, researchers examined students’ reactions to midterm exam scores in an introductory chemistry course. These grades represent recurring and highly meaningful events for students, as final grades are primarily dependent on midterm grades. A low final grade can hinder a student’s academic and career aspirations.
The study involved 724 undergraduate students with an average age of 19 years enrolled in general and organic chemistry courses at the University of Miami. 539 of the participants were women. Students agreed to complete surveys using their mobile phones multiple times during the semester and sometimes several times a day. By the study’s conclusion, 687 participants had completed all surveys, and one-third identified as having depression.
At the beginning of the semester and at multiple time points between exams, participants completed assessments of depression and anxiety symptoms using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). did. Every 2 days, they also completed an assessment of their current emotional state using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The messaging app sent SMS notifications with survey links at planned intervals.
After taking the midterm exam, students predicted their grades. Once grades were released, the app prompted students to complete an emotional assessment every 45 minutes over the next eight hours. The researchers calculated the difference between predicted and actual performance to assess emotional reactions to positive and negative outcomes.
To control the process, students decided when to display their grades. I received an SMS notification that my grades were available and was able to view them by clicking on the link provided. When students accessed their grades, the app automatically launched the corresponding sentiment survey.
On average, each participant completed 81 to 82 surveys during the study period, completing 72% of the surveys sent. Overall, students tended to slightly overestimate their grades. Participants with more severe depressive symptoms reported lower expected performance and slightly lower actual performance.
As expected, students who performed better than expected experienced improved mood, while students who performed lower than expected reported worsening mood. These emotional changes persisted for 7 to 8 hours after reviewing their grades.
However, for depressed students, the improvement in mood in response to better-than-expected grades was less pronounced than for non-depressed students. Conversely, when grades were lower than expected, there was no difference in mood deterioration between depressed and non-depressed students. Additionally, anxiety levels were not significantly related to emotional reactions to performance.
“Combining high-stakes personally impactful real-world events with emotional experience sampling, we found that people with higher levels of depression responded more emotionally to positive PE. was found to be decreasing. [positive prediction errors, when students got better grades than they expected]. These effects are highly specific and suggestive of anhedonia. [reduced ability to feel pleasure and enjoyment] “It may be manifested by some people downplaying the meaning of positive PE as a type of maladaptive cognitive immunity,” the study authors concluded.
Although this study provides valuable insight into the emotional responses of patients with depression, its findings are limited to a specific group of students in a specific situation. Results may vary depending on other demographic groups and different circumstances that influence mood. Further research is needed to understand how depression affects emotional responses in different settings.
The paper isDepression is associated with blunted emotional responses to naturalistic reward prediction errors.” by William J. Villano and Aaron S. Heller.
