Negative self-schemas and devaluation of positivity in depressed individuals: A moderated network analysis

Depressed individuals hold negative schemas and experience less positivity in their lives. Network analyses suggest that this may be due to connectivity among negative concepts within depressed individuals’ schemas. However, the extent to which positivity interacts with negativity in depressed persons’ schemas has not been thoroughly assessed. Thus, we examined the interactive components of the Fear of Happiness Scale, a construct that examines negative emotions associated with happiness, in 966 individuals with depressive symptoms ranging from none to severe via a moderated network model. Patterns of connectivity differed by depressive symptom severity. Notably, as depressive symptoms increased, items representing avoidance and dampening of positivity with negative thoughts went from weakly, negatively connected at no depressive symptoms to strongly, positively connected at elevated depressive symptoms. In other words, individuals who experience higher levels of depressive symptoms devalue positivity in their semantic networks, demonstrating an opposite pattern to those without depressive symptoms. Future work should longitudinally examine other individual differences related to the devaluation of reward to ascertain how these individual differences directly contribute to and maintain depressive symptoms.