(PS10-C51) Relationships Between Acceptance, Positive Affect, and Reward Responsiveness

Acceptance, a core component of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), has been conceptualized as an emotion regulation (ER) strategy that includes cognitive appraisal of the acceptability of emotional experience prior to its generation and allowance of the experience of emotion (Hofmann & Asmundson, 2008). Unlike suppression or avoidance, acceptance is viewed as an adaptive ER strategy and is associated with increased positive emotionality and decreased symptom severity (Brockman et al., 2017). Despite its association with positive affect (PA) (Jimenez et al., 2010), relationships between acceptance as an ER strategy and other transdiagnostic mechanisms relevant to the PA system have yet to be explicated. Alterations in reward responsiveness, both in anticipation and following receipt of reward, have been linked to anhedonia, or low PA, across a range of disorders (Shankman et al., 2014). Thus, the present study examined associations among dispositional use of acceptance and self-reported state and trait PA and anticipatory and consummatory reward responsiveness over the course of one week.

132 undergraduate students completed baseline questionnaires assessing trait PA (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule [PANAS]) and acceptance (Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale Acceptance Subscale [PHLMS]). Participants then completed daily diary questionnaires assessing anticipatory (ARR) and consummatory (CRR) reward responsivity and state PA three times per day for one week. Linear mixed models were conducted to explore whether baseline dispositional use of acceptance predicts increased PA, ARR, and CRR across the daily diary paradigm.

Significant associations were found between baseline acceptance and baseline PA (r = 0.147, p = 0.048). Baseline acceptance predicted elevated PA (β = 0.07, t (357.31) = 4.76, p < .001) across the daily diary paradigm. Baseline acceptance also predicted increased ARR (β = 0.008, t (371.05) = 2.45, p = 0.015) and CRR (β = 0.01, t (425.27) = 3.27, p < .001) across 7 days.

Results demonstrate significant associations between acceptance and trait and state PA, supporting the role of acceptance as an adaptive ER strategy associated with increased positive emotionality. Findings also support a relationship between acceptance and increased anticipatory and consummatory reward responsivity. Use of acceptance may be an important treatment target for CBTs to potentiate joy via increased responsivity to naturally occurring rewards. Future research using different methodologies (e.g., experimental tasks, neuroimaging) are needed to fully characterize the relationship between state and trait use of acceptance and other maladaptive ER strategies (e.g., suppressive strategies) and distinct elements of reward system functioning.