BEHAVIOURAL IMPACTS OF ANHEDONIA ON STUDENT PROCRASTINATION & PRESENTEEISM

Abstract

Anhedonia (diminished ability to feel pleasure from previously enjoyable stimuli) is a characteristic symptom of mental disorders like Depression, affecting vulnerable populations by reducing their expectations of pleasure from future rewards (anticipatory anhedonia) or immediate physical or sensory experiences (consummatory anhedonia). With reduced reward-oriented processing, the tendency to expend effort is also decreased, leading to lower productivity, investigated here in terms of procrastination (intentional delaying of completing necessary tasks) and presenteeism (reduced productivity at work due to health conditions). Since past research has broadly looked at presenteeism in work environments (using an adult population), its assessment in an academic context (using a student population), with regards to mental health alone, hoped to fulfil the gap in literature. The anhedonia subtypes, domains and facets were measured using scales and questionnaires while anhedonia components were assessed using behavioural tasks. Consummatory anhedonia was found to be more strongly correlated with higher procrastination and presenteeism, linking it to negative outcomes like work impairment and fear of failure. However, age and gender were found to be confounds, as did depression severity. Nevertheless, these findings had important implications for student mental health, whose academic success has been tied to life outcomes and overall quality of life.