2019 Volume 62 Issue 3 Pages 231-243
Anhedonia is a core symptom of major depressive disorder. Anhedonia is associated with decreased motivation to reward and with an increase in several behavioral problems such as suicide. Lempert and Pizzagalli (2010) showed that anhedonia is negatively correlated with the discounting rate in a delay discounting task. The findings of Lempert and Pizzagalli (2010) are important in revealing the relationship between anhedonia and reward sensitivity. However, the reproducibility of psychological research has recently been criticized. We conducted a replication study, based on Lempert and Pizzagalli (2010). One hundred sixty-five participants from a Japanese crowdsourcing service completed a questionnaire about anhedonia and a delay discounting task. We found that anhedonia was not significantly correlated with the delay discounting rate. We could not replicate the results of Lempert and Pizzagalli (2010). The failure to replicate the results of the aforementioned study is because of the heterogeneity of each study with regard to the delay discounting task. A meta-analysis is needed to evaluate replication and heterogeneity. Lastly, we discuss the significance of “pre-review” and “pre-registration” in the reproducibility crisis.
