Delay discounting and future-directed thinking in anhedonic individuals

Anhedonia (lack of reactivity to pleasurable stimuli) and a negatively skewed view of the future are important components of depression that could affect economic decisions in depressed individuals. Delay discounting paradigms might be useful for probing putative affective and cognitive underpinnings of such decisions. As a first step to evaluate whether difficulties experiencing pleasure might affect delay discounting, 36 undergraduate students with varying levels of anhedonia performed a delay discounting task in which they made choices between a small immediate and larger future monetary reward. Increasing levels of anhedonia (Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale) were negatively associated with delay discounting rate, indicating that anhedonic individuals tended to choose the larger, albeit delayed reward. These correlations remained after controlling for variables previously linked to delay discounting (working memory capacity and impulsivity) and pessimistic future-directed thinking. The current findings provide preliminary evidence indicating that anhedonic individuals make less myopic decisions about their future, possibly due to their decreased responsiveness to immediate rewards.