Trial reportJournal of consulting and clinical psychology2023
Positive affect treatment targets reward sensitivity: A randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 62 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Pilot Study of Positive Affect Training for Endocrine Therapy Medication Adherence
Augmentation of Exposure Using Positive Mental Rehearsal in Individuals With Increased Social Anxiety
Who cites it
62 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 104 citations in OpenAlex.
- Examining the relationship between pre-treatment anhedonia and treatment outcomes in individuals with anxiety or depression: A systematic review.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Pooled it
- Pro-dopaminergic pharmacological interventions for anhedonia in depression: a living systematic review and network meta-analysis of human and animal studies.EBioMedicine · 2025Pooled it
- Positive Affect Treatment for Depression, Anxiety, and Low Positive Affect: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2026Trial
- Individual differences in dopamine-related traits influence mood effects of dopamine D2-antagonist and antidepressant treatment expectations.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Digital positive affect intervention (PAI) versus self-monitoring placebo in the treatment of anxiety and depression: a two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT).BMC psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Brain Activation Associated With Response to Psychotherapies for Late-Life Depression: A Task-Based fMRI Study.The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2025Trial
- A pilot randomized controlled trial of a brief intervention targeting positive valence systems function to prevent internalizing symptoms in college students.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2025Trial
- A parallel-arm, randomized trial of Behavioral Activation Therapy for anhedonia versus mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for adults with anhedonia.Behaviour research and therapy · 2024Trial
- Amplification of positivity for depression and anxiety: Neural prediction of treatment response.Behaviour research and therapy · 2024Trial
- Savoring changes novel positive mindset targets of GAD treatment: Optimism, prioritizing positivity, kill-joy thinking, and worry mediation.Behaviour research and therapy · 2024Trial
- A randomized, controlled pilot study of positive affect treatment adapted for anorexia nervosa.The International journal of eating disorders · 2024Trial
- Are changes in joviality associated with cognitive behavioral treatment outcomes? Examining an emerging treatment target.Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.) · 2023Trial
- Targeting positive valence systems function in children of mothers with depressive symptoms: A pilot randomized trial of an RDoC-Informed preventive intervention.Behaviour research and therapy · 2023Trial
- Daily-life associations between posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, affect, and posttrauma cognitions in the context of the processing of positive memories.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Preventive Cognitive Therapy as Relapse Prevention in Remitted Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Low Emotional Awareness and Altered Frontostriatal Functional Connectivity During Reward Processing Prospectively Predict Depressive Symptoms in At-Risk Youth.Journal of child and adolescent psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Blunted Reward Responsiveness During Social Feedback: Associations with Peer Victimization and Anhedonia in Socially Anxious Adolescents.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Probing biomarkers and clinical utility of reward learning across species using the Probabilistic Reward Task: 20 years of findings.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Affective Processing in Depression Risk: Insights From Event-Related Potentials.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Acceptability and Feasibility of a Digital Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.The International journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveDetermine whether a novel psychosocial treatment for positive affect improves clinical status and reward sensitivity more than a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that targets negative affect and whether improvements in reward sensitivity correlate with improvements in clinical status.
methodIn this assessor-blinded, parallel-group, multisite, two-arm randomized controlled clinical superiority trial, 85 treatment-seeking adults with severely low positive affect, moderate-to-severe depression or anxiety, and functional impairment received 15 weekly individual therapy sessions of positive affect treatment (PAT) or negative affect treatment (NAT). Clinical status measures were self-reported positive affect, interviewer-rated anhedonia, and self-reported depression and anxiety. Target measures were eleven physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and self-report measures of reward anticipation-motivation, response to reward attainment, and reward learning. All analyses were intent-to-treat.
resultsCompared to NAT, individuals receiving PAT achieved superior improvements in the multivariate clinical status measures at posttreatment,
conclusionsTargeting positive affect results in superior improvements in clinical status and reward sensitivity than targeting negative affect. This is the first demonstration of differential target engagement across two psychological interventions for anxious or depressed individuals with low positive affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.