Wanting and Liking: Testing the Factor Structure of The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale in Major Depression and Community Samples

Abstract

The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) is a multidimensional self-report measure that has been used to improve understanding of anticipation (“wanting”) and consummation (“liking”) of reward. The TEPS has been used to assess anhedonia in clinical depression, but its factor structure has not yet been confirmed in this population. This seems important given mixed findings on the model fit and factor structure of the TEPS in other clinical and community samples. To remedy this, the current study used confirmatory factor analysis to test models of the TEPS items across three studies: (a) in adults with major depression ( n = 334), (b) in youth with major depression ( n = 305), and (c) in a community sample ( n = 320). In summary, the model fit of the two-factor TEPS scales was adequate in depressed and community Australian samples. Nevertheless, some items may require removal or revision based on cultural preferences for pleasurable experiences.

Testing the factor structure and measurement invariance of the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale in adolescents across time, gender, and race/ethnicity.

“…First, consistent with research findings differentiating between anticipatory and consummatory pleasure (e.g., Kringelbach & Berridge, 2009), our findings confirmed that the two-factor solution was the best fitting model for the TEPS. These findings echo past results with adults who also found support for the two-factor structure of the TEPS (e.g., Hallford & Austin, 2021), and suggest that contrary to concerns regarding the complex wording of items (Watson et al, 2020), the items were interpretable for adolescents. The present study also extends previous studies by demonstrating that the original two-factor model provides a better fit to the data than more complex (i.e., bifactor) models that are becoming increasingly popular approaches for measuring psychopathology risk and have relevance for conceptualizations of anhedonia (Olino et al, 2018).…”

“…These findings provide insight into the percentage chance other factor solutions would emerge as providing the best fit if tested in another dataset. Additionally, following past research which suggested bifactor models to be relevant for conceptualizing anhedonia (Olino et al, 2018), as well as others who have reported the anticipatory and consummatory latent constructs to be highly correlated (e.g., Ho et al, 2015; Hallford & Austin, 2021), exploratory bifactor models using oblique Bi-Geomin rotation (Muthén & Muthén, 1998/2017) were tested to examine whether introducing a common factor would provide a more parsimonious solution in understanding the factor structure of the TEPS. Bifactor models with one general factor, and two, three, or four specific factors, were tested.…”

“…Consistent with such findings, Gard and colleagues developed the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS; Gard et al, 2006), an 18-item self-report measure designed to assess the two proposed facets of anhedonic predispositions, including 10 items assessing anticipatory pleasure (e.g., "When something exciting is coming up in my life, I really look forward to it") and eight items assessing consummatory pleasure (e.g., "I enjoy taking a deep breath of fresh air when I walk outside"). Since its development, the TEPS has been widely used across both clinical and community samples (e.g., Hallford & Austin, 2021) and represents the only self-report measure for reward highlighted in National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)'s Research Domain of Criteria (RDoC) across both reward responsiveness and learning. Self-report measures of anhedonic predispositions, such as the TEPS, can play a critical role in measuring reward at the population level, and potentially support the development of large-scale prevention initiatives to identify early on who may be at-risk for anhedonic-related psychopathology.…”

“…Although anhedonia manifests differently across disorders (e.g., depression vs. PTSD; Cohen et al, 2020; Kashdan et al, 2006), similar anhedonic predispositions are transdiagnostic risk factors and serve as potential targets for emerging interventions (Pizzagalli, 2014). In response, the present study tested the factor structure of the Temporal Experiences of Pleasure Scale (TEPS), the most widely used self-report measure of anhedonic predispositions (Hallford & Austin, 2021), in a diverse sample of adolescents.…”

“…Scale (TEPS), the most widely used self-report measure of anhedonic predispositions (Hallford & Austin, 2021), in a diverse sample of adolescents.…”