Psychological Bulletin, Vol 148(9-10), Sep-Oct 2022, 741-763; doi:10.1037/bul0000380
Evidence suggests that individuals with schizophrenia display a trait–state disjunction in affective experience characterized by severe trait-level disturbances yet relatively intact state-level experiences, but the extent to which trait–state disjunction is found in individuals at high risk (HR) for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders is unclear. Therefore, this meta-analysis provides an integrative evaluation of HR individuals’ self-reported affective experiences across trait and state to identify which disturbances are most pronounced and for whom—a crucial objective for understanding affective vulnerability factors for schizophrenia. A literature search yielded 181 studies, totaling 995 effect sizes across 9,672 HR and 15,386 controls. Notably, a large amount of heterogeneity among effect sizes was observed. Multivariate models with robust variance estimation showed that HR (vs. control) participants had lower trait positive affect (PA) and higher trait negative affect (NA), with state-level disturbances being weaker than trait-level disturbances. Heightened NA generalized across methods used for eliciting and assessing affective experiences, whereas PA deficits were more variable and most severe for social processes. Moreover, the severity of PA and NA disturbances was greater for participants with higher levels of schizophrenia-spectrum risk. Overall, findings provide support for the trait–state disjunction in HR conditions along the schizophrenia spectrum, although the observed heterogeneity highlights the uncertainty of our findings and urges continued investigation in further explicating this heterogeneity. We outline an explanatory model for these findings and discuss important implications to facilitate future research on the role affective experience disturbances may play in the developmental pathway for schizophrenia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)