(PS2-B48) Experience the Good or Avoid the Bad? Emotion Preferences in Depression and Social Anxiety

When people prioritize avoiding negative emotions, they have fewer resources to pursue and savor positive emotions. This approach–avoidance tradeoff may be especially difficult for individuals who have deficits in positive emotions such as those with depression or social anxiety. Yet, most studies measure emotional approach and avoidance tendencies separately, which does not reflect the direct tradeoff decisions that people often make during everyday situations.

Participants were adults (N = 269) with elevated depression and social anxiety symptoms recruited through the community. Participants completed a series of self-report questionnaires, including the Beck Depression Inventory, the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, and a novel measure of emotion tradeoffs. In this measure, participants were asked to imagine a hypothetical scenario in which they could purchase their next-day emotional experiences. Participants divided up $100 by allocating dollar amounts to each positive emotion they would pay to feel (i.e., contentment, gratitude, joy, interest, awe) or negative emotion they would pay to avoid feeling (i.e., anger, embarrassment, afraid, guilt, sad). We first fit separate linear regression models to examine the relationships between depression/social anxiety symptoms and emotion tradeoffs, and then added depression and social anxiety in one model to isolate the unique effects of symptoms on emotion tradeoffs.

Participants with greater depression (b = –0.33, t = –2.78, p = .006) and social anxiety symptoms (b = –0.35, t = –4.39, p < .001) reported a lower emotion preference ratio (i.e., allocated less money to experience positive emotions than to avoid negative emotions) than those with lower depression and social anxiety symptoms, respectively. When included in the same model, social anxiety was still associated with a greater preference to avoid negative emotions (b = –0.32, t = –3.42, p < .001) above and beyond depression, whereas depression no longer predicted emotion preference (p = .497).

Our findings suggest that individuals with greater depression and social anxiety value avoidance of negative emotions more than obtainment of positive emotions. This might be driven by beliefs about negative emotions (e.g., a lack of confidence in their ability to regulate anxiety) or positive emotions (e.g., worrying they would express joy in a socially unacceptable way). Cognitive-behavioral treatments should explore how beliefs people hold about emotions inform regulatory decisions. When accounting for co-occurring symptoms, we found that social anxiety drives approach–avoidance decisions more so than depression. This is consistent with work linking social anxiety to emotion biases about both negative and positive emotions that drive avoidance. In cognitive-behavioral treatments for social anxiety, it might be valuable to augment traditional interventions to reduce avoidance (e.g., eliminating safety behaviors) with interventions that promote approach behaviors (e.g., pursuing and savoring positive emotions).