中国科学院心理研究所机构知识库

Difficulties in feeling pleasure and expressing emotions are one of the key features of schizophrenia spectrum conditions, and are significant contributors to constricted interpersonal interactions. The current study examined the experience of pleasure and emotional expression in college students who demonstrated high and low levels of schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) traits on self-report questionnaires. One hundred and seventeen subjects with SPD traits and 116 comparison controls were recruited to participate. Cluster analyses conducted in the SPD group identified negative SPD and positive SPD subgroups. The negative SPD group exhibited deficient emotional expression and anticipatory pleasure, but showed intact consummatory pleasure. The positive SPD group reported significantly greater levels of anticipatory, consummatory and total pleasure compared to the control group. Both SPD groups reported significantly more problems in everyday memory and greater levels of depressive and anxiety-related symptoms.

This study was supported partially by a grant from the National Key Technologies R&D Program (2012BAI36B01), the National Science Fund China (81088001, 91132701), the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KSCX2-EW-J-8), and the Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.