Individual differences in depressive symptoms are associated with impaired incentive, but not aversive motivation

The emotion context insensitivity model asserts that depression is associated with deficits in emotional reactivity to positive and negative emotion cues. Although there is support for this formulation, discrepant findings have prioritized the identification of factors that lend themselves to greater or lesser model support. One such factor may be the measure used to index emotional reactivity. The current study hypothesized a specific pattern of divergence from model predictions when emotion modulated startle was used to index emotional reactivity. Forty-one undergraduates viewed a series of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures while the startle reflex was periodically elicited. Controlling for sex and trait anxiety, CES-D depression scores were unrelated to startle reactivity during viewing of unpleasant pictures (attack: r = −.01; contamination: r = .06), but positively correlated with startle reactivity during viewing of pleasant pictures (erotica: r = .33). These patterns represent intact reactivity to unpleasant emotion cues, but impaired reactivity to incentive-laden erotic cues, among individuals highest in depressive symptoms. Identical findings emerged when “depressed” and “nondepressed” groups, formed on the basis of CES-D clinical cutoffs, were examined. Results sharpen the theoretical utility of the ECI model and underscore the impairments in incentive motivation that characterize depressed mood.