Dissociation of Self-Reported and Observed Pleasure in Depression

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Abstract
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 10 depressed inpatients and 10 ward staff members during the patients'' base-line, medication-free period. Depressives displayed significantly lower degrees of positive effect 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. Normal subjects showed synchronous, or associated self-reported and observed activity, whereas depressives appeared to be dissociated along those same dimensions. A dissociation appeared in self-reports of positive vs. negative mood states, suggesting the existence of a malfunction in these normally inhibitory affective mechanisms.