Anhedonia and emotional responses to affect evoking stimuli

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether individuals with unusually high scores on the Scale for Physical Anhedonia (Chapman et al. 1976) would differ from average scorers in their emotional responses to affect-evoking stimuli. Ten male and ten female anhedonics, as well as ten male and ten female control subjects, were each shown brief filmclips that were expected to elicit emotional responses. The subjects’ facial expressions were videotaped while they watched the filmclips, and they also completed adjective checklists describing how they felt while watching them. The anhedonics and nonanhedonics did not differ in their self-reports of emotional experience, nor did they differ in their facial expressions of emotion while viewing the filmclips. Compared to men, women reported experiencing more emotion, and their facial expressions also indicated greater responsiveness.