The mood brightening effect of leisure activities and social company in young people with depression and anhedonia symptoms: an ecological momentary assessment study

Sahni, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1137-1207 and McCabe, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8704-3473 (2026) The mood brightening effect of leisure activities and social company in young people with depression and anhedonia symptoms: an ecological momentary assessment study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 397. 121020. ISSN 0165-0327 doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.121020

Abstract/Summary

Background: Depressed individuals are less reactive than controls to positive stimuli in the laboratory, yet mood brightening (MB) is when positive stimuli increase positive affect (PA) and/or decreases negative affect (NA) more in those with depression compared to controls, in real life. Leisure activities and social company may drive mood brightening in depression, but their impact on anhedonia remains unclear, clarifying this could inform intervention development. Methods: Participants (N=71, mean 20yrs) with a range of depression and anhedonia symptoms provided 6 days Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data about their leisure activities and social company and NA and PA. In 2,177 ecological momentary assessments, we measured affective reactivity as the difference between PA and NA at the time of the activity/social company compared to two baselines: previous assessment (t-1; lag-1 fluctuation) and within-subject mean. Longitudinal multilevel linear regression models examined the interaction between symptoms and affect reactivity to leisure and to social company. Results: Multilevel models revealed that those with higher depression (p<0.05) and anhedonia symptoms (p<0.025) had greater reductions in NA during leisure activity and that those with higher depression symptoms (p<0.05) had greater reductions in NA during social company. These findings indicate MB effects of leisure activity and social company. Conclusions: Although MB has been documented in depression this is the first study to examine a MB effect in anhedonia symptoms. We provide real-time mechanistic evidence that encouraging individuals with depression and anhedonia symptoms to engage in leisure activities and seek out enjoyable social company could elevate their mood via a reduction in NA.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/127799
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.jad.2025.121020
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Psychopathology and Affective Neuroscience
Publisher	Elsevier
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