• Justin D Caouette and Amanda E Guyer.
• Department of Human Ecology & Center for Mind and Brain, University of California - Davis, Davis, CA, United States. Electronic address: jdcaouette@ucdavis.edu.
• J Affect Disord. 2016 Jan 15; 190: 792-799.

BackgroundThe emotional context insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis suggests individuals with depression have blunted affective responses to both positive and negative events. We tested ECI in a social context to examine how depression relates to affective responses to social acceptance and rejection outcomes. Furthermore, we aimed to identify cognitive mechanisms linking depression with affective response to social feedback. Finally, we tested whether these processes are similar for social anxiety.Method90 participants (age 18-26 years; 53 women) completed the two-visit Chatroom task. At Visit 1 they rated their expectations about being liked by 60 peers. At Visit 2 they completed self-reports of depressive and social anxiety symptoms, and of cognitive flexibility, then received acceptance or rejection feedback from each peer and rated their affective response.ResultsGreater depressive symptoms related to negative expectancy bias, lower cognitive flexibility, and less positive affective response to acceptance, but did not relate to rejection. Negative expectations and cognitive flexibility mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and affective response for acceptance; only negative expectations mediated rejection responses. These cognitive mechanisms were not related to social anxiety.LimitationsA community sample was used to assess depression. Rumination and current mood state were omitted as potential predictors of affective response.ConclusionsFindings support the ECI framework. Depression but not social anxiety interferes with positive and negative affect through cognitively mediated dampening of emotional response to social acceptance and rejection. Emotion regulation strategies in depression therapy can target social flexibility to improve alignment of affective reactions to social outcomes.Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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