Clinical Depression and Punishment Sensitivity on the BART
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Authors
Hevey, D.
Thomas, K.
Laureano-Schelten, S
Looney, K.
Booth, R.
Issue Date
2017
Type
Article
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Depression is associated with altered sensitivity to reward and punishment, which can influence complex decision-making. We examined punishment sensitivity in the performance of participants with major depressive disorder (MDD) with that of a comparison group on the automatic Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), which is a direct measure of risk taking. The present study examined the BART performance of 30 individuals with MDD and 30 matched comparison individuals. The comparison group (M = 63.25) entered a significantly (p < 0.001; d = 1.1) higher number of pumps on the BART than the MDD group (M = 50.83). Higher levels of depression symptoms were significantly correlated (r = -0.40, p < 0.05) with entering a lower number of pumps in the MDD group. MDD patients showed an increased sensitivity to punishment on the BART: after a loss, the MDD group decreased (M = 13.7) the number of subsequent pumps they entered by a significantly (p < 0.001, d = 0.81) greater amount than the comparison group (M = 4.35). This difference applied to losses only: no difference was found between the groups regarding the magnitude of change in pumps selected after a win. Findings suggest the presence of elevated punishment sensitivity among individuals with MDD, which may contribute to the maintenance of depressive symptoms.
Description
Citation
Hevey, D., Thomas, K., Laureano-Schelten, S., Looney, K., & Booth, R. (2017) Clinical Depression and Punishment Sensitivity on the BART Frontiers in Psychology, 8:670, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00670