Kupferberg, Aleksandra; Hager, Oliver M; Fischbacher, Urs; Brändle, Laura S; Haynes, Melanie; Hasler, Gregor (2016). Testing the social competition hypothesis of depression using a simple economic game. BJPsych open, 2(2), pp. 163-169. The Royal College of Psychiatrists 10.1192/bjpo.bp.115.001362
|
Text
Kupferberg_Hasler_2016_testing_social_competition_hypothesis_depression_MDD.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works (CC-BY-NC-ND). Download (260kB) | Preview |
BACKGROUND
Price's social competition hypothesis interprets the depressive state as an unconscious, involuntary losing strategy, which enables individuals to yield and accept defeat in competitive situations.
AIMS
We investigated whether patients who suffer from major depressive disorder (MDD) would avoid competition more often than either patients suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD) or healthy controls.
METHOD
In a simple paper-folding task healthy participants and patiens with MDD and BPD were matched with two opponents, one with an unknown diagnosis and one who shared their clinical diagnosis, and they had to choose either a competitive or cooperative payment scheme for task completion.
RESULTS
When playing against an unknown opponent, but not the opponent with the same diagnosis, the patients with depression chose the competitive payment scheme statistically less often than healthy controls and patients diagnosed with BPD.
CONCLUSION
The competition avoidance against the unknown opponent is consistent with Price's social competition hypothesis.
DECLARATION OF INTEREST
G.H. received research support, consulting fees and speaker honoraria from Lundbeck, AstraZeneca, Servier, Eli Lilly, Roche and Novartis.
COPYRIGHT AND USAGE
© The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2016. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy > Translational Research Center 04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy 04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy > Healthcare Research |
UniBE Contributor: |
Kupferberg, Aleksandra, Haynes, Melanie, Hasler, Gregor |
Subjects: |
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health |
ISSN: |
2056-4724 |
Publisher: |
The Royal College of Psychiatrists |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Gregor Hasler |
Date Deposited: |
23 Feb 2017 14:10 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 15:01 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1192/bjpo.bp.115.001362 |
PubMed ID: |
27703769 |
BORIS DOI: |
10.7892/boris.92314 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/92314 |
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit item |