Cited by 541Schizophrenia research and treatmentMental Health and PsychiatryNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

Emotional Experience in Patients With Schizophrenia Revisited: Meta-analysis of Laboratory Studies

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Cohen, A. S., Minor, K. S.·2010·Schizophrenia Bulletin

Abstract

Our understanding of the emotion deficits in schizophrenia is limited. Findings from studies employing trait emotion instruments suggest that patients have attenuated levels of positive emotion (ie, anhedonia) and increased levels of negative emotion. Conversely, patients and controls have not statistically differed in their subjective reactions to positive or negative valenced stimuli in most laboratory studies to date. Further obfuscating this issue is the fact that many of these laboratory studies are underpowered and a handful of emotion induction studies have found evidence of anhedonia. We conducted a meta-analysis of 26 published studies employing laboratory emotion induction procedures in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. Patients did not differ from controls when strictly rating their subjective hedonic reactions to the stimuli. However, they reported experiencing relatively strong aversion to both positive and neutral stimuli (Hedges D = .72 and .64, respectively). These findings were not the result of demonstrable sample or methodological differences across studies. Patients' ability to experience hedonic emotion is preserved, although they also show relatively strong, simultaneously occurring aversive emotion when processing laboratory stimuli considered by others to be pleasant or neutral.

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  • Individuals with schizophrenia also report similar or heightened subjective emotional experience, including in response to movie clips, pictures, food, and odors.

    “However, individuals with schizophrenia also report similar or heightened subjective emotional experience [392], including in response to movie clips [393], pictures [394], food [395], and even odors [396].”
  • Cohen and Minor (2010) reported that people with schizophrenia show more negative emotion than healthy controls in response to neutral or positive stimuli.

    “Studies finding increased personal distress in schizophrenia align with a previous meta-analysis that found that people with schizophrenia experience heightened negative emotions compared to healthy controls when faced with neutral or even positive stimuli (Cohen and Minor, 2010).”

    From Empathy in schizophrenia: A meta-analysis of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (2017) · cites this paper as Cohen and Minor, 2010

  • The personal distress finding aligns with Cohen and Minor's (2010) meta-analysis, which found heightened aversive emotion in schizophrenia in response to positive or neutral lab stimuli.

    “This aligns with findings from a meta-analysis of laboratory studies investigating emotional experience conducted by Cohen and Minor (2010) in which people with schizophrenia displayed heightened aversive emotion in response to positive or neutral lab-based stimuli as compared to healthy controls.”

    From Empathy in schizophrenia: A meta-analysis of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (2017) · cites this paper as Cohen and Minor (2010)

  • In schizophrenia, the ability to experience pleasure is generally intact, whereas the capacity to pursue and achieve a pleasurable goal (wanting) is significantly disrupted.

    “However, recent studies using a range of pleasant stimuli, including positive words, faces, sounds, film clips, erotic pictures, and sweet drinks, have highlighted that the ability to experience pleasure is generally intact in individuals with schizophrenia, whereas the capacity to pursue and achieve a pleasurable goal (that is, the ‘wanting’ component of reward), is significantly disrupted [50].”

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Flack WF, Jr, Laird JD, Cavallaro LA. Emotional expression and feeling in schizophrenia: effects of specific expressive behaviors on emotional experiences. J Clin Psychol. 1999;55:1-20.

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Authors
Cohen, A. S., & Minor, K. S.
Affiliations
Louisiana State University (US)
Venue
Schizophrenia Bulletin
Published
2008-06-17
Volume
36
Issue
1
Pages
143-150
ISSN
  • 0586-7614 (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-1701
OpenAlex
W2114985586
Cited by
541
References
76
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 42 · 2015: 43 · 2014: 54 · 2013: 34 · 2012: 34
FWCI
2.35
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Schizophrenia Bulletin (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Civil War Book Review (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
schizophrenia
MeSH terms
Emotions, Female, Humans, Male, Reading, Reference Values, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenic Psychology, Semantics, Social Behavior, Social Environment, Taste, Visual Perception

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