Social Interaction Experience Research Articles

Post-play communication of emotions facilitates prosociality and cooperation

Social decisions with monetary consequences are often accompanied with emotional consequences. Previous studies document a robust role of pre-play message communication in facilitating pro-sociality and cooperation. Yet, the effects of communicating emotional experiences in social interactions (particularly post-play) remain understudied. Here, we examine the value of a social environment where emotional expressions are shared post-play in contrast to a private environment where emotion exposure is absent. We develop an experimental design that facilitates emotion exposure and can be readily administered in or outside the laboratory. In this pre-registered online study, participants (N = 196) completed incentivized extensions of the Dictator Game (DG) and the Prisoners' Dilemma Game (PD). Participants learned to classify their emotional experiences on the arousal, valence, and dominance dimensions using non-verbal pictorial representations. Our experiment comprised both a within-subject and a between-subject manipulation: each participant completed a control condition (C, no emotional exposure) as well as an emotion exposure condition (Emotions), but the type of exposure varied between subjects (certain exposure, or Emotions-E, or probabilistic exposure, or Emotions-P). In all conditions, participants complete a one-shot DG and PD. We find that emotion exposure increases other-regarding behavior under both Emotions-E and Emotion-P conditions in the DG and under Emotions-E only in PD. Further, we find that demand for emotion exposure is hardly driven by the outcome of the social interaction (or the actions selected). We also document how empathic concern influence other-regarding behavior and how reports of emotional experiences vary across treatments and with the different outcomes of social interactions. Our results highlight the integral role of emotion exposure in social decision making. Environments that facilitate the communication of emotional experiences increase pro-sociality and encourage cooperation.

The association between institutional setting, cultural intelligence and social interaction in a divided society: a study among students

Purpose This study aims to explore the perception of students from conflicted groups studying nursing together regarding the intergroup encounter. Specifically, this study focused on Jewish and Arab students in a nursing undergraduate program at an Israeli college. This study focused on the association between two factors [students’ cultural intelligence (CQ) level and their satisfaction with the support provided by the college] and the degree of closeness or social interaction Arab and Jewish students experience. Design/methodology/approach Accordingly, 362 students completed three anonymous questionnaires during December 2022, focused on (1) CQ (2) satisfaction with the academic setting and (3) experience of intergroup social interaction. Findings The results revealed that (1) Arab students (minority group) demonstrated higher CQ than Jewish students, especially regarding awareness of cultural differences and motivation for intercultural encounters. (2) Arab students experienced the intergroup encounter with Jewish students as closer and warmer than Jewish students did. (3) Despite being a minority group in Israel, Arab students’ satisfaction with the college’s support was higher than that of Jewish students. (4) Satisfaction with the support provided by the college was the main factor associated with the sense of social interaction, having a higher correlation with it than the degree of CQ. Originality/value Fostering CQ through curricula alone is insufficient in shaping intergroup experiences of students studying together in a divided society. To encourage social interaction between students in academia in divided societies, educational institutions need to ensure their students’ sense of support is high.

Design and research of educational mode in context of teaching gamification

With the development of science and technology, the education model is also constantly evolving. Teaching games is an increasingly concerned educational strategy, which can improve students’ interest and participation in learning through gamification. In order to further optimize the effect of teaching gamification, this paper uses a clustering algorithm to analyse students’ learning situation and determine the main factors affecting students’ participation, including learning motivation, learning tasks, social interaction and game experience. Based on the results of learning situation analysis, the naive Bayes algorithm is used to analyse students learning behaviour. The model can predict students’ future learning needs and interests according to their learning history and behaviour, so as to recommend the most suitable gamified learning resources for them. The design and implementation of this model can help to improve the effect of teaching gamification and provide students with a more personalized learning experience. At the same time, the model also helps teachers to better understand students’ learning needs and interests, so as to better guide their learning.

Primary Health Care: the Relational Aspects of Social Interaction between Family Doctors and People with Disabilities

Strategic documents of the United Nations and the European Union express the belief that primary health care is a fundamental part of health care services and it must be accessible to all people and funded according to the means. Many research studies prove that enhancement of the primary health care system helps to effectively eliminate causes and risk factors for poor health and to prevent likely impairment of health in the future. However, the data of recent investigations demonstrate that the quality of health care services in Lithuania is much poorer than the average of the EU, and the institution of family doctors providing services of this type suffers from problems related to the efficiency of functioning. Therefore, it is worth investigating possible causes for this problem, to identify them and search for solutions. The paper presents the research that is aimed at examining one part of the aspects of the problem, specifically the relational aspects of social interaction between family doctors and people with disabilities from the point of view of people with disabilities and their relatives. 555 people with disabilities (PWD) and 540 respondents who had relatives with disabilities and took care of them (PWDcare) participated in the survey carried out in 2019–2020 and reported about their experience of social interaction with family doctors. The research indicated many positive tendencies, of which the most prominent was the satisfaction of the relationship, trust and understandment with family doctors. But at the same time the research revealed some more problematic areas, such as the lack of family doctors’ compassion and warmth to many patients. These results are important for improving the primary health care service and quality as well for strengthening the family doctors’ education.

공감의 관점에서 분석한 연극교육의 가치 연구

In this study, we attempted to reveal, by analyzing the experience structure of ‘creating an impromptu play,’ that theater education in a competencybased curriculum can improve empathy. For this purpose, we looked at empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand others and is a concept that combines the cognitive element of being able to think from the other person's perspective and the emotional element of being able to feel the emotions of others. Empathy can be expressed through face-to-face social interaction experiences, as revealed by mirror neurons, so diverse direct experiences are of utmost importance. Based on this, the experience structure of ‘creating an impromptu play’ was divided into three stages and analyzed to be an experience structure that can promote empathy. The first step is ‘creating a story.’ This is a process that is premised on empathy from another person’s perspective, and when imagining a story, the body can promote empathy because it reenacts actions as if they were real. Since this process is structured through group cooperation, it can be analyzed as an immediate empathy training process from the perspective of others. The second step is ‘expressing roles.’ Depending on the body's operating principles, role experience can promote actions appropriate to one's imagination or fragmentary expressions can stimulate the rest of the body to provide sufficient role experience. Therefore, it is an experience structure that allows us to understand others in the most direct way. Additionally, since it is a face-to-face social interaction, you can practice empathy by experiencing the non-verbal behavior of others. The third step is ‘appreciating it as an audience member.’ Appreciation experience is an experience structure that allows one to escape the physical limitations of everyday life, understand others from their perspective, and internalize the life knowledge they have acquired through this, according to the body's operating principle of internal imitation. In this way, theater education has an experience structure based on empathy, so it can be an educational alternative for improving empathy in a competency-centered curriculum. By proving the value of theater education through this study, we hope that theater education will be more actively applied and expanded in various educational fields.

Gendered Dimensions of Migration and Conviviality: A Virtual Space for Autoethnographic Explorations of ‘Finding Home’

ABSTRACT Gendered dimensions of migration although mainstream current research, there is less attention given to migrant women’s social interaction and convivial experiences. As three transnational women living and working in Melbourne, we have our social lives outside work and family. During COVID-19 lockdowns, we found ourselves isolated with restrictions on social interaction and convivial gatherings. In this paper, we discuss how we experienced ‘conviviality’ while sharing our stories of ‘finding home’ in a virtual space. We engaged on Zoom to tour an exhibition about migrant stories – The Unending Absence (2017) at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne. We listened to migrants’ audio stories of ‘finding home’, then paused to write our individual experiences of migratory moves. Collaborative autoethnography facilitated our writing and reflexive dialoguing providing a safe and convivial space to share our experiences infused with emotions. Discussing our gendered migration journeys we found similarities and differences in cultural heritage, ethnicity, and belonging along with personal and professional identities structuring our choices, decisions, norms, and opportunities of ‘finding home’. Through reciprocal triadic lenses, we highlight how social interactions and being convivial are important to our ongoing well-being, whether we interact with others in person or using a virtual space.

I think you might like me: Emergence and change of meta-liking in initial social interactions.

Feeling accepted by others is a fundamental human motive and an important marker of successful social interactions. This interpersonal perception, known as meta-liking, is especially relevant during adolescence, when peer relationships deepen and expand. However, knowledge is limited regarding meta-liking formation in initial social interactions. This study investigated whether adolescents (N = 293, Mage = 15.48, 61.10% female) have default expectations for meta-liking at zero acquaintance and how these judgments are updated during initial group interactions. Specifically, we used latent change models to examine how personality traits predicted initial meta-liking and whether personality and social interaction experiences were linked to changes in meta-liking judgments throughout an interaction. Our findings revealed three key insights: First, meta-liking increased gradually over the course of the interaction, with substantial individual differences in both default meta-liking and change scores. Second, extraversion, neuroticism, and self-esteem predicted initial meta-liking. Third, liking others was also linked to initial meta-liking and early changes, while meta-liking changes toward the end of the interaction occurred independent of all these features and were not predicted by expressive behaviors of interaction partners. This study represents a first empirical test of default expectations and updates in meta-liking based on personality characteristics and social interaction experiences in initial social interactions. We discuss our results in terms of a broader framework for understanding how metaperceptions are formed and updated early in the acquaintance process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Does interpersonal emotion regulation effort pay off?

Interpersonal emotion regulation shapes people's emotional and relational experiences. Yet, researchers know little about the regulation processes that influence these outcomes. Recent works in the intrapersonal emotion regulation space suggest that motivational strength, or effort, people invest in regulation might be the answer. We applied this motivated approach for the first time in the interpersonal space-looking at both intrinsic and extrinsic forms of interpersonal emotion regulation-in order to identify the potential emotional and relational outcomes of putting effort into regulating one's own emotions through others, and regulating others' emotions. In daily diary (N = 171) and experience sampling (N = 239) studies, we examined participants' interpersonal emotion regulation behaviors and socioemotional experiences in everyday social interactions over the course of 1 week. These methods allowed us to examine effort at both momentary and person levels. We found that people who habitually put in more intrinsic effort to feel better through others felt worse overall. People also felt worse on occasions when they put in more effort to extrinsically help others feel better, although at the person level extrinsic effort was associated with higher interaction quality. Together, our findings suggest that interpersonal emotion regulation success is not simply a matter of trying hard. This observation opens new research avenues to investigate the interplay of different factors that determine when, and for whom, investing effort in interpersonal emotion regulation pays off. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of social interactions on the neural representation of emotional words in late bilinguals

ABSTRACT This fMRI study explored the relationship between social interactions and neural representations of emotionality in a foreign language (LX). Forty-five late learners of Japanese performed an auditory Japanese lexical decision task involving positive and negative words. The intensity of their social interactions with native Japanese speakers was measured using the Study Abroad Social Interaction Questionnaire. Activity in the left ventral striatum significantly correlated with social interaction intensity for positive words, while the right amygdala showed a significant correlation for negative words. These results indicate neural representations of LX emotional words link with the intensity of social interactions. Furthermore, LX negative words activated the left inferior frontal gyrus more than positive and neutral words, suggesting greater cognitive effort for processing negative words, aligning with a bias in adult social interactions towards more positively-valenced language. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of social interaction experiences in the processing of LX emotional words.

Determining The Needs of Social Affordance in an Open Public Space for Gen Z

Gen Z, who are adolescents, need places for social interaction, places for retreat, and places for restoration to support their development phase. Their needs could be settled by utilizing the space and perceiving the social affordances of open public spaces. The study examined the social affordances of open public space that sustain Gen Z’s development needs. The study was conducted in a famous open public space in Yogyakarta, Titik 0 km Yogyakarta. Questionnaires and observations were carried out for data collection from the visitors of Titik 0 km Yogyakarta between 12-25 years old. The result indicated that Gen Z tends to utilize the physical setting of the open public space to achieve social interaction needs. The variety of seating facilities, enclosure levels, and crowding influenced Gen Z’s decision to do activities in certain locations. The finding indicated the adolescent’s needs for social interaction, retreat, and restoration experiences could be obtained from perceived social affordances by doing social activities in open public spaces. More needs are achieved in open public spaces, more opportunities for Gen Z to enhance their development quality.

Neural correlates of social exclusion and overinclusion in patients with borderline personality disorder: an fMRI study

BackgroundInterpersonal difficulties of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are closely related to rejection sensitivity. The aim of the present study was to gain further insight into the experience and cerebral processing of social interactions in patients with BPD by using fMRI during experimentally induced experiences of social exclusion, inclusion, and overinclusion.MethodsThe study involved 30 participants diagnosed with BPD (29 female and 1 male; age: M = 24.22, SD = 5.22) and 30 healthy controls (29 female and 1 male; age: M = 24.66, SD = 5.28) with no current or lifetime psychiatric diagnoses. In the fMRI session, all participants were asked to complete a Cyberball task that consisted of an alternating sequence of inclusion, exclusion, and overinclusion conditions.ResultsCompared to healthy controls, participants with BPD reported higher levels of inner tension and more unpleasant emotions across all experimental conditions. At the neural level, the participants with BPD showed lower recruitment of the left hippocampus in response to social exclusion (relative to the inclusion condition) than the healthy controls did. Lower recruitment of the left hippocampus in this contrast was associated with childhood maltreatment in patients with BPD. However, this difference was no longer significant when we added the covariate of hippocampal volume to the analysis. During social overinclusion (relative to the inclusion condition), we observed no significant differences in a group comparison of neural activation.ConclusionsThe results of our study suggest that patients with BPD experience more discomfort than do healthy controls during social interactions. Compared to healthy participants, patients with BPD reported more inner tension and unpleasant emotions, irrespective of the extent to which others included them in social interactions. At a neural level, the participants with BPD showed a lower recruitment of the left hippocampus in response to social exclusion than the healthy controls did. The reduced activation of this neural structure could be related to a history of childhood maltreatment and smaller hippocampal volume in patients with BPD.

Reasons for switching the primary health providers among national health insurance participants in Klungkung District, Bali Province, Indonesia

Background and purpose: National Health Insurance Provider (BPJS Kesehatan) facilitates the distribution of National Health Insurance (NHI) participants. High number of 1,947 NHI participants were switched primary health providers in Klungkung, Bali between July to December 2021.This study aims to explore the reasons for the switching of providers among NHI participants and the health providers’ efforts to minimize it. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study guided by an access theory was conducted in Klungkung District between December 2022 to March 2023. A total of 18 informants were purposively recruited, consisting of NHI participants (12 people), health service providers (4 people), BPJS Kesehatan (1 person) and staff of the district health office (1 person). Data was collected through in-depth interviews guided by interview guidelines. Data were analyzed using a thematic approach and presented in a descriptive narrative. Results: NHI participants in Klungkung District switched provider due to spatial and non-spatial reasons. Spatial reason was the distance and time to the health provider. Non-spatial reasons included (1) conflict in social relations due to service and negative attitudes of health workers, (2) economic considerations in the health system which are difficult to reach, and (3) external encouragement. Strategies that have been or can be implemented to minimize the switching of PHCs were adjusting operational hours, improving the infrastructures, administration through fulfilling accreditation, service quality and training for human resources. Conclusion: The dominant reason for switching of PHCs is associated with negative social interaction experiences related to human resources and service facilities at PHCs. PHCs are expected to be able to improve the quality of services through improving human resources and service delivery facilities.

Cognitive Restoration Design: A Psychological Intervention for Stress Mitigation in Neighbourhood Park

Numerous research studies have revealed the landscape’s positive effects on human health and well-being. While prior research underscores landscapes' positive impact on well-being, a gap still needs to be in comprehending their influence on psychological and cognitive aspects. This research focuses on how landscape attributes, specifically those seen in neighbourhood parks, may serve as a stress-relieving cognitive stimulus. In this study, we utilised qualitative research design by employing an in-depth expert interview method to explore what causes stress in urban communities and how specific landscape attributes can improve mental health and well-being. A total of 12 experts consisting of clinical psychologists, counsellors, neuropsychologists, therapists, landscape professionals and academia have consented to participate in this interview. The results illuminate a conceptual framework illustrating how psychological and cognitive landscape attributes can effectively promote cognitive restoration. The findings indicate that the design must be human centred as people are born with innate sense, intuition, and preference, all of which should be considered while designing for their psychological needs. Particularly to stimulate the cognitive part, providing landscape design elements that could inspire enthusiasm is important. This could encourage people to go to the park and interact with various stress-relieving landscape stimuli. Hence, designing for user comfort, safety, social interaction, and pleasurable experiences is critical for achieving cognitive restoration goals.

Telling a supervisor about experiences of gendered dismissal: Problems of documentation, tellability, and failed authority

AbstractDifficulties of documentation characterize many problematic experiences of social interaction. Here, we study such difficulties by analyzing a case in which an employee tells her supervisor about the gendered dismissal that she has experienced at work. Using video‐recorded performance appraisal interviews as data and conversation analysis and positioning analysis as methods, we examine how the experience of gendered dismissal lends itself to a documentable issue. We describe the process by which the problem that the employee initially described as an organizational leadership issue became redefined as a personal matter, which was not the responsibility of the supervisor. We show how this happened by the supervisor refraining from treating the employee's problem as “tellable” on its own terms, which led to the employee repeatedly changing her storyline. We argue that the persistence of inequalities in organizational interactions may be due to documentation difficulties, which are anchored in cultural expectations that bias the tellability of events in ways that promote gender inequality.

An Interuniversity Competition for Medical Students to Learn Radiology in the Second Life Metaverse

PurposeThe aim of this study was to evaluate an interuniversity competition online to learn radiology held in a 3-D virtual world, the Second Life metaverse, by analyzing the results of the game and students’ perceptions. MethodsMedical students voluntarily participated in teams of four, for 6 weeks, successively covering radiologic anatomy and radiologic semiology of the chest, abdomen, and musculoskeletal. Each week, participants had 4.5 days to study self-learning presentations and 2.5 days to complete an individual multiple-choice test and a team task, the results of which determined the game’s ranking. Participants were asked to complete a cognitive-load test, a perception questionnaire, and a postexposure knowledge test. ResultsThe competition was repeated for 2 years (editions), in 2020 and 2021. Seventy-five of 102 teams (73.5%) registered completed the game; 76% of them included third-year students. The average percentage of correct answers in the individual tests and team tasks was 74.2 ± 15.1 and 71.6 ± 14.7 respectively, without significant differences between both competitions. In general, the experience was valued positively (scores >8 on a 10-point scale). A lower perception score was found in 2021 among students from universities other than the organizing university, showing a positive correlation with the in-game score. ConclusionsAn interuniversity competition in the Second Life metaverse for undergraduate learning radiology is feasible and reproducible. Participating medical students considered it interesting and useful and also identified this activity during the 2 years of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic as a playful learning and social interaction experience.

45 The Influence of Wearing Face Mask on Facial Emotion Recognition in Preschoolers

Objective:During the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing face masks is an important strategy to prevent people from infection, allowing people to find a balance between maintaining social interaction and keeping social distancing. Since face mask might disrupt information processing of social cognition, it could lead to less functional connectivity of occipital face area, fusiform face area, and superior temporal sulcus which interrupted the development of medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) for mentalizing. However with better executive function (EF) people could process facial stimuli more efficiently. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of wearing face masks on preschoolers' facial emotion recognition, and the factors which might affect the development of facial emotion recognition.Participants and Methods:In this study, preschoolers (N=44, 24 boys and 20 girls, aged 3 to 5 years-old) recruited from the community were asked to identify the emotions expressed in the 36 stimulus photos, each randomly presented with six emotion (happy, sad, angry, surprised, fearful, and disgusted). The total face stimulus photos were 2 (face sex) × 6 emotions × 3 facial features (full face, presenting upper counterparts of face with face mask covering the mouth, and presenting lower counterparts of face with hat covering the eyes). The EF of preschoolers and their parent were also evaluated to examine whether EF could predict the correct score of facial emotion recognition.Results:It was found that the correct score of emotion recognition increased with age. The recognition with full face feature were better than with upper feature and lower feature. When recognizing happy and disgust, participant tended to use lower features. When recognizing sad and angry, participant tended to use upper features. The EF of preschoolers could predict the correct score of emotion recognition. The EF of parents could predict the preschoolers' correct score of positive emotion recognition.Conclusions:The ability of facial emotion recognition evolved rapidly in preschool age with the accumulation of social interaction experience and improved the development of auditory and visual subcortical cortex and the connectivity of MPFC. This study examined the emotion recognition ability of preschoolers and found that the face features preschoolers used to recognized emotion were consist with previous study. However, when the presenting stimulus were covered by face mask or hat, it was more difficult for preschoolers to recognizing emotion which would result in difficulty of understanding the social context and development of MPFC for mentalizing. In this study, it was found that preschooler's with better EF could be more efficiently recognizing facial emotion. Also, parents with better EF showed more positive emotion in daily life which lead to their children more sensitive to positive facial emotion.

Routes to momentary self-esteem in adolescence: Links with interpersonal perceptions of liking and personality metaperceptions within social interactions.

This study provides insights into the perceptual processes contributing to positive social experiences and momentary self-esteem in adolescents' initial social interactions. A person's self-esteem is shaped by their social experiences. However, little is known about which interpersonal perceptions are linked to momentary self-esteem within social interactions. Identifying two key interpersonal perceptions, we examined differential associations between an individual's meta-liking and other-perceptions of liking by interaction partners with momentary self-esteem. Further, we investigated how preceding personality metaperceptions (i.e., meta-accuracy and meta-positivity) extended these sociometer processes. The current study used round-robin data from N = 296 adolescents participating in a virtual group interaction. Social accuracy modeling was used to estimate meta-accuracy and meta-positivity of personality metaperceptions, and path models were used to test associations with interpersonal perceptions of liking and momentary self-esteem self-esteem. Two main findings emerged: First, meta-liking was consistently related to higher momentary self-esteem, whereas other-perceptions of liking were not. Second, meta-positivity of personality metaperceptions was linked to higher meta-liking and indirectly contributed to higher momentary self-esteem through meta-liking. These findings highlight the importance of considering different interpersonal perceptions to understand social interaction experiences.

Social self-efficacy and mental well-being in autistic adults: Exploring the role of social identity.

In the past, research has suggested that autistic people are not able to communicate well with non-autistic people because of autistic people's communication difficulties. However, newer theories question this conclusion. It is now thought that the communication difficulties may be because autistic and non-autistic people both struggle to understand each other. This study explores how these differences in shared understanding relate to autistic people's mental well-being, confidence in social situations and social identities (groups that we belong to and that influence how we see ourselves). We created an online survey taken by 512 autistic adults, which included questions about their confidence being social with people from different groups (such as other autistic people or people they share a hobby with), about the social groups they felt they belong to and about their mental well-being. First, participants reported higher social confidence when interacting with members of a social group they belonged to. Second, being confident during these interactions was linked to higher mental well-being. Finally, the groups participants belonged to did not influence the link between social confidence and mental well-being. These findings are important as they help us better understand autistic people's experiences of social interactions and what contributes to good and poor mental well-being in autistic people. They also help us to think further about how to improve autistic people's well-being.

Expectations and experiences of screen time, social interaction, and solitude

ABSTRACT The current research examined how people forecast and experience screen time, social interaction, and solitude. When participants could freely use their smartphone, they forecasted (Study 1) and experienced (Study 2) better mood for face-to-face conversation, but worse mood for sitting alone. When participants were instructed to engage in specific screen time activities, they forecasted (Study 3) and experienced (Study 4) the best mood after watching television; followed by conversation, texting, and browsing social media (no difference); then sitting alone. Although participants in Studies 1 and 2 ranked conversation as their most preferred activity, participants in Studies 3 and 4 ranked it below television and texting, even though conversation improved mood compared to baseline (Study 4). These findings suggest that people may use their smartphones because they enable them to escape the unpleasant experience of being alone, or because they do not recognize or prioritize the mood benefits of social interaction.

Association between overt aggression and anhedonia in patients with major depressive disorder during the acute phase

ObjectiveTo explore the factors influencing anhedonia at baseline and use them as confounding factors. To further investigate the correlation between overt aggression and anhedonia during the acute phase of major depressive disorder. MethodsIn this eight-week prospective study, 384 major depressive disorder patients were recruited from the outpatient section of Shanghai Mental Health Center from May 1, 2017, to October 30, 2018. Standard treatments were performed with escitalopram or venlafaxine for participants. Depressive symptoms, overt aggression, and anhedonia were assessed using the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Modified Overt Aggression Scale, and Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale at baseline, and in the 4th and 8th weeks. ResultsObsessive-compulsive symptoms and the duration of untreated psychosis were positively associated with aggression (P < 0.05). Patients with aggressive behaviour had worse cognitive impairment and severe anhedonia of pleasurable sensory experiences (P < 0.05). For anhedonia, being female (tau_b = −0.23, P = 0.012) was a protective factor, while number of recurrent, melancholic features, current obsessions, previous combination drug therapies, depressive symptoms, and aggressive behaviour were risk factors (P < 0.05). Social anhedonia related to interests/pastimes, and pleasurable sensory experiences were more severe in major depressive disorder patients with aggressive behaviour in the acute phase (P < 0.05). ConclusionsAnhedonia persisted in major depressive disorder patients with aggressive behaviour after standardized treatment during the acute phase. Being female protected the pleasures from social interaction and sensory experience. However, the number of depressive episodes, melancholic features, current obsessive symptoms, previous combination drug therapies, depressive symptoms, and aggressive behaviour was positively associated with anhedonia.