The Effects of Affective Expectations on Willingness to Expend Cognitive Effort in Dysphoric and Non-Dysphoric Individuals

Purpose

Reduced motivation to expend cognitive effort is a clinically relevant but understudied feature of depression. Preliminary research indicates that depressed and dysphoric individuals may be less willing to expend cognitive effort for reward than non-depressed individuals. However, the extent to which this is due to reduced expectations of reward, and whether willingness to expend effort can be increased by altering affective expectations of reward, are unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of dysphoria, anhedonia, and affective expectations on cognitive effort expenditure for reward.

Methods

Dysphoric (n = 85) and non-dysphoric participants (n = 79) were randomly assigned to either a high expectancy condition designed to increase individuals’ expectations of a reward that could be earned during a cognitive effort progressive ratio task or a neutral expectancy condition that did not attempt to alter expectations. Expected pleasure ratings were collected, and then participants completed the cognitive effort progressive ratio task.

Results and Conclusions

The expectancy manipulation was unsuccessful, but we found that dysphoria group interacted with participants’ self-reported expectations of pleasure to predict their cognitive effort expenditure. Within the dysphoric group, higher expectations of pleasure were significantly associated with greater effort. In contrast, within the non-dysphoric group, effort was relatively high regardless of expectations. Anhedonia further moderated this relationship; in the dysphoric group, the relationship between expected pleasure and effort expenditure weakened as anhedonia increased. Implications for the treatment of depression are discussed.