Anhedonia refers to a loss of interest in life or a diminished capacity to experience pleasure (Rizvi et al., 2016). It includes a diverse array of deficits in hedonic function and is a symptom associated with a wide range of psychiatric disorders (Loas, 1996). According to the content of pleasurable stimulus and its effects, anhedonia can be divided into physical and social anhedonia (Chapman et al., 1976). Social anhedonia is defined as a deficiency in pleasure from social contact, reduced reward experience from social stimuli and/or reduced motivation, and disinterest in pursuing relationships (Gooding and Pflum, 2022). In recent years, social anhedonia has been increasingly considered as a transdiagnostic symptom (Barkus and Badcock, 2019). Elevated rates of self-reported social anhedonia often associated with several disorders. For example, social anhedonia is a cardinal feature of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (Pflum and Gooding, 2019). It is also prevalent among individuals with depression (Enneking et al., 2019), autism spectrum disorder (Gadow and Garman, 2020), post-traumatic stress disorder (Nawijn et al., 2015), and eating disorders (Tchanturia et al., 2012). Recently, accumulating evidence indicates that social anhedonia as a transdiagnostic process may also be an inherent feature of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD; Abramovitch et al., 2014, Xia et al., 2019, Grassi et al., 2020).

OCD is a well-known, burdensome psychiatric illness, and anhedonia may be considered an endophenotype candidate of OCD (Xu et al., 2020). It has been reported that about 1/3 OCD patients have demonstrated clinically significant anhedonia (Abramovitch et al., 2014). Evidence further suggested that social anhedonia was closely related to some obsessive–compulsive symptoms or disorders, such as hoarding(Chen et al., 2022) and Tourette syndrome (Eddy, 2018). A previous study provided neurobiological proof that substantiates the existence of the social anhedonia phenotype in OCD (Xia et al., 2019). Higher levels of social anhedonia are associated with lower levels of social support and social functioning (Blanchard et al., 2011), and adaptive social functioning is essential to recovery from mental illness (Barkus and Badcock, 2019). As OCD patients experience a deteriorated quality of life, especially on the aspect of social function (Macy et al., 2013), it may make it harder for them to experience pleasure in social interpersonal interaction. Therefore, it is meaningful to pay attention to social anhedonia in patients with OCD. As a prerequisite, it is necessary to define a standard and effective instrument for measurement of social anhedonia in OCD patients.

Several measures exist for measuring anhedonia, though only a few are specifically designed for measuring social anhedonia. One of the most commonly used instruments for social anhedonia is the revised Social Anhedonia Scale (RSAS; Eckblad et al., 1982). In addition, the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS) is a common method used to measure social anhedonia in patients and the general population (Gooding and Pflum, 2014a). Compared to the RSAS, the ACIPS measures social/interpersonal pleasure, which is an indirect measure of social anhedonia, reflecting more contemporary values, behaviors, and linguistic styles. Based on prior research, there exists a significant negative correlation between RSAS and ACIPS scores (Gooding and Pflum, 2014b). The ACIPS was specifically designed to identify individual differences in the ability to experience pleasure from social and interpersonal interactions, for example, sharing experiences with others, expressing feelings, and communicating feelings with others, either in person or remotely (Gooding et al., 2017). In addition to having more updated content, fewer items of the ACIPS could prevent patients with mental disorders from reliability and validity reduced due to overload with too many items, which may thereby reduce the credibility of results. ACIPS is easy to administer and is therefore time-saving. Besides the original adult version, the authors have developed a version for adolescents (Gooding et al., 2016b) and children, making the scale applicable to subjects of all ages.

Based on the advantages above, the ACIPS has been translated into numerous languages and is in wide use with many cross-cultural validations, including Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, and Korean (Chan et al., 2016; Gooding et al., 2016a; Chaix et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2022). The ACIPS demonstrated high internal consistency across studies (Cronbach’s α range from.86 to.95) in a wide range of college, community, and patient samples. The ACIPS has been administered to many patient groups, including patients with depressive disorder, schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and autism, etc. (Ritsner et al., 2018; Han G. T., et al., 2019; Liang et al., 2020; Balasingam et al., 2023). The ACIPS has shown great validity (Gooding et al., 2014; Gooding and Pflum, 2014b; Gooding et al., 2015).These attributes made ACIPS a potentially helpful tool for elucidating how individual differences relate to risk for various forms of psychopathology linked to social relationship deficits.

The Chinese translation of ACIPS was validated psychometrically in 389 nonclinical participants, which indicates that it has four factors (Chan et al., 2016). Nonetheless, it is not known whether this scale is applicable to patients with OCD. We wondered whether the structure factors of social anhedonia in patients with OCD would be different from that in the undergraduate population. Furthermore, previous studies have found significant differences in ACIPS scores between male and female participants, with females reporting significantly greater levels of social and interpersonal pleasure (Gooding et al., 2015). However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have been conducted on the measured invariance of ACIPS across genders, or across undergraduate and OCD samples. Measurement invariance refers to the comparability of scores obtained by people belonging to different groups on the same measurement instrument because the scores have a consistent meaning across the groups (Meredith, 1993). It may not be known whether these differences between groups are real without measurement invariance verification. Because the latent psychological structure may not be consistent across all groups. Simply put, there remains a need for measurement invariance testing of the ACIPS, which is vital for psychological research, particularly when comparing between groups.

This study aims to compare several different structural models previously reported, and to determine the most suitable model for the ACIPS in both undergraduate and OCD samples. Further, we assess the internal consistency reliability and convergent validity of ACIPS in OCD patients. Additionally, we use the best-fit factor structure to probe measurement invariance across OCD patients and undergraduate samples and across gender groups. Finally, we examine the presentation of ACIPS scores in patients with OCD and its relationship with clinical symptoms.

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of the ACIPS in Chinese OCD patients. The study also analyzed the relationship between the severity levels of various clinical symptoms of OCD and the ACIPS score. The results of CFA showed that the four-factor model of ACIPS was optimal, with good internal consistency reliability and convergent validity. The study therefore confirmed that the scale is effective in measuring social anhedonia with measurement invariance across genders, as well as across OCD patients and undergraduate populations. The ACIPS scores were significantly higher among undergraduates than in the patients with OCD. In the undergraduate sample, females experienced significantly more social pleasure than males, while no gender difference was found in the OCD sample. In addition, the study indicates that depression and the severity of obsessive thoughts was significantly correlated with the level of social pleasure deficit in OCD patients.

Previous studies probing the psychometric properties of the ACIPS in different languages have reported inconsistencies in the scale’s factor structure. The ACIPS was originally designed to distinguish between anticipatory and consummatory pleasure, forming a two-factor structure, but subsequent analyses were not able to confirm its validity. Instead, evidence suggests that either a three-or four-factor model is more appropriate (Gooding and Pflum, 2014a, 2016; Chan et al., 2016; Gooding et al., 2016a; Chaix et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2022). Lately, researchers validated the structure of the ACIPS in a mixed clinical sample (including 294 patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder), replicated the four-factor structure of the ACIPS in a Chinese setting, and showed good discrimination validity (Liang et al., 2020). Consistent with that, in this study, the results of a confirmatory factor analysis indicate that a four-factor solution provides an appropriate fit in the Chinese OCD patient sample. This includes Friendship, Family and Intimacy-Related Relationships, Social Interactions, and Casual Interactions/Conversations.

It is necessary to ensure measurement invariance before making a comparison among group means, in order to determine whether a construct has the same meaning across groups (Han K. et al., 2019). In this study, scalar invariance was established across undergraduate and OCD samples, and residual invariance was established across genders, which suggests that social anhedonia manifests similarly across groups. The measurement invariance across groups allows us to interpret the measurement data of social anhedonia in a meaningful way. The level of interpersonal pleasure in OCD patients was significantly lower than in the undergraduate sample, implying general social anhedonia in OCD patients, which is consistent with previous studies (Xia et al., 2019). Interacting with others involves a great deal of social cognition, i.e., cognitions about the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others. Recently, a meta-analysis showed that OCD is associated with medium-sized deficits in the theory of mind and cognitive empathy (Bora, 2022). Impairments in social cognition render social interactions more difficult and less enjoyable. In this way, although social functioning domains are not primary hedonic deficits, they do contribute to social anhedonia (Gooding et al., 2016a). In the undergraduate sample, we observed gender differences in that females reported higher levels of social and interpersonal pleasure than males, in full agreement with previous studies (Gooding et al., 2015). In contrast, no gender differences were found in the OCD patients.

In terms of reliability, the ACIPS has good internal consistency in both the undergraduate sample and the OCD patients. The results of convergent validity indicated that individuals with lower interpersonal pleasure as assessed by ACIPS had a high level of social anhedonia measured by the RSAS, which is consistent with the previous studies (Gooding and Pflum, 2014b). The ACIPS was inversely associated with the BDI, consistent with prior findings in Spanish and Korean samples (Gooding et al., 2016a; Kim et al., 2022).

The second aim of the current study was to explore the relationship between clinical symptoms and ACIPS scores in patients with OCD. The result demonstrated that depression and the severity of obsessive thoughts significantly and negatively correlated with the ACIPS score in patients with OCD. A study found that major depression appears to be associated with state-related social anhedonia (Blanchard et al., 2001). In patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, researchers have also found that higher social anhedonia scores were primarily predicted by greater depression scores (Bodapati et al., 2019). The relationship between depression levels and social pleasure deficits appears to have a cross-diagnostic trend. As for the effects of obsessive thoughts, according to the earlier discussion, people suffering from OCD tend to have social anhedonia. Research has demonstrated that the clinically severe subgroups of OCD reported the highest impairment ratings in relationships and social functioning domains (Ruscio et al., 2010). One possible reason is that individuals with OCD already have impaired emotional awareness and perception (Kang et al., 2012), and individuals with high levels of obsessive–compulsive thinking are more perfectionistic, making it more difficult to have pleasant experiences in interpersonal interactions. In addition, patients with OCD often struggle with hostile and suspicious thoughts, and studies have shown a positive correlation between hostility and the severity of OCD (Tellawi et al., 2016). This may make them more cautious about interacting with others and less likely to experience social pleasure. For patients with OCD without comorbid other psychiatry disorders, hostility is often implied only in obsessive thoughts rather than directly in behavior.

The present study had some advantages in that it was the first study to compare all the factor structures of available versions of ACIPS in both undergraduate and OCD samples. In addition, for the first time, we explored and validated the measurement invariance of ACIPS across gender and groups, meeting the criteria to allow intergroup comparisons. At the same time, there were some limitations of this study. For example, no specific question is set to prevent random responses. In addition, the sample included in the survey is still relatively simple. To examine measurement invariance on more epidemiological dimensions, future studies should extend the sampling range and sample size of subjects. In addition, the measurement invariance of ACIPS across time remains to be verified.

In summary, the ACIPS was demonstrated to have good reliability and validity in an undergraduate sample and a sample of OCD patients. In both samples, the four-factor structure had the best fit index. Scalar invariance was observed between undergraduate and OCD samples, while residual invariance was established across genders. Furthermore, social anhedonia in OCD patients is associated with depression and obsessive thoughts. In conclusion, the ACIPS is a reliable, effective, simple, and convenient tool for assessing and screening for social anhedonia.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Ethics Committee of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

XZ conceived and designed the study. The data analysis, results interpretation, and original manuscript writing were done by JL. XW, XZ, QL, and QY reviewed the original manuscript. QL, XW, JL, and QY collected the research data. JF and XZ supervised this work. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (XZ, grant number 82171532).

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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