Measuring Social Motivation Using Signal Detection and Reward Responsiveness

Background Recent trends in psychiatry have emphasized the need for a shift from categorical to dimensional approaches. Of critical importance to this transformation is the availability of tools to objectively quantify behaviors dimensionally. The present study focuses on social motivation, a dimension of behavior that is central to a range of psychiatric conditions but for which a particularly small number of assays currently exist. Methods In Study 1 (N = 48), healthy adults completed a monetary reward task and a social reward task, followed by completion of the Chapman Physical and Social Anhedonia Scales. In Study 2 (N = 26), an independent sample was recruited to assess the robustness of Study 1’s findings. Results The reward tasks were analyzed using signal detection theory to quantify how much reward cues bias participants’ responses. In both Study 1 and Study 2, social anhedonia scores were negatively correlated with change in response bias in the social reward task but not in the monetary reward task. A median split on social anhedonia scores confirmed that participants with high social anhedonia showed less change in response bias in the social reward task compared to participants with low social anhedonia. Conclusions This study confirms that social anhedonia selectively affects how much an individual changes their behavior based on the presence of socially rewarding cues and establishes a tool to quantify social reward responsiveness dimensionally.