Does our mood affect our gaming behavior?

Content warning

• mental health
• anhedonia
• depression

The short story

Almost done! Anna calls to her boyfriend through the closed bathroom door and immediately wonders if that sounded too annoyed. The last few weeks had been stressful and they had argued more often than usual, mostly because of misunderstandings triggered by little things, such as supposedly irritated tones of voice or annoyed looks. I have no idea how it got this far and how we’re going to get out of it, she thinks and takes a deep breath. Actually, nothing has happened between them. Not much has happened at all lately, but then again, not much good has happened either. Is that why she feels so empty? She pushes aside the thought that the spark between her and Phillip may simply have gone out and starts applying mascara. She knows that Phillip is already waiting and that they are late for their double date. She notices how slowly she is getting ready, how erratic her movements are, but she simply cannot go any faster. When she tries to hurry, she only becomes frantic, pokes herself in the eye with the mascara brush, or drops something. Besides, she doesn’t know where to find the energy to hurry. Somehow Anna has been feeling so sluggish lately, even though she sleeps enough, almost too much. But no matter how much she sleeps, she is tired in the morning and can’t really get going during the day. But that’s exactly what tonight is supposed to change. A game night with friends, if that doesn’t get her out of her rut. She runs her fingers through her hair one more time and smiles at her reflection in the mirror, then walks out the door.

As they walk to Max and Sophie’s house, she asks Phillip about his day. He tells her about a meeting where he successfully convinced his colleagues of an idea he had, and she says, great. Anna notices her thoughts wandering, but she can’t even say where. Twilight bathes the street in a dark blue-gray, slowly washing away the colors of the day. It’s already a bit cold and Anna crosses her arms in front of her body. She looks up at the sky, where gray clouds hang low. She should have brought a thicker jacket, maybe an umbrella? When there is silence for two steps, Anna realizes that she doesn’t know what he just said, at least not really. But it’s always the same anyway, and basically he’s happy, he’s doing well at work. When he asks her back, Anna says, well, as always, work feels so pointless and I can hardly concentrate. I was so tired again today, but I also slept badly. Phillip asks what she had for lunch and what she thinks they will get at Max’s place, and Anna is annoyed that he isn’t responding to what she said. She says bread and don’t know, and they walk the rest of the way side by side in silence.

Anna has gotten through the usual small talk. Nice to see you, weather, work, weekend, what music do you want to listen to? After ordering food, they decide to already play a round while they wait for it to be delivered. She is sitting on a wooden chair, facing the table. She just sits there and listens, but feels somehow restless. Sophie has unfolded the game instructions in front of her and her gaze is focused on the paper with its systematic creases. She telegraphically reads the rules that are particularly important or that they might have forgotten. Of course, everyone has played Monopoly many times before and knows how to play. Anna stares at the little man with the hat on the game box, and the exaggerated enthusiasm on his cartoon face irritates her. Then Max deals the cards, and stacks of money, houses, and cards gather in front of them. The game begins.

The dice roll across the table and the others laugh and joke as virtual money is exchanged. Anna plays along, moving her piece forward and forcing her mouth to smile, but today she finds the whole thing somehow ridiculous. How everyone gets so carried away, talking big about buying houses and building hotels, and acting as if the play money wasn’t just printed paper. As if there was something at stake. Anna doesn’t care at all whether the pile of money in front of her shrinks or grows, whether she wins or loses in the end. What impact does it have on her life? It’s her turn and she rolls the dice, moves her piece. One, two, three, four, five. Where she lands, she could buy a street, which would probably be beneficial, would advance her in the game, and isn’t even that expensive. She stares at the card for a moment, but doesn’t quite understand what it says, or perhaps she’s not really thinking about it. Phillip nods to her and she shrugs her shoulders. Yes, why not, she says, and Sophie counts the money from the pile she holds out to her. She could invest again next time, but this time she declines and passes the dice on. Soon the towers around the game board grow, but Anna’s stack of money remains more or less the same height in front of her, like a small protective wall. Eventually she ends up in jail, but she doesn’t mind slowly rolling her way out again. It is quieter here, their task is clear, and there are fewer decisions to be made.

After the first round is over and Sophie cheers and the men demand revenge, they eat, chat, drink, and then play another round. The mood is relaxed, but Anna hardly participates. She finds all the topics uninteresting, so superficial. They talk about weekend trips, and mutual friends, which concert they would like to go to and that they bought a new sofa. Outside, it has started to rain, and the sound of raindrops falling on the windowpane mixes evenly with the sound of dice on the table and the music in the background.

This story was translated to English by the author.

The paper

Huys, Q. J., Pizzagalli, D. A., Bogdan, R., & Dayan, P. (2013). Mapping anhedonia onto reinforcement learning: a behavioural meta-analysis. Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders, 3(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/2045-5380-3-12

Connection between story and paper

Several studies have shown that individuals with depressive symptoms, particularly anhedonia, behave differently than comparison groups in psychological tasks and games. In particular, there are differences in how depressed individuals behave and feel in response to winning and losing in game contexts. This could indicate a dysfunction of dopaminergic pathways in a subgroup of depressed patients, as this system plays an important role in reward processing. These findings could contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms behind depressive symptoms and help find new ways to measure and monitor symptoms objectively.

The author

Laura Bäuerl is a PhD student in the SCAN-Unit at the University of Vienna and investigates underlying mechanisms of depressive symptoms using computational models, (gamified) behavioral tasks, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) transdiagnostically. Thereby an additional focus lies on exploring the potential role of sex hormones in the disproportionate prevalence of mood disorders in females. Laura has a background in Linguistics, Cognitive Science and artificial intelligence, and a passion for literature, photography and traveling.