Social motivation in autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia

Social motivation is one of the psychological processes which underlie social functioning. Social motivation is understood as a set of behavior and predispositions that drive people to search for social interactions, and create and maintain social bonds. The components of social motivation are subserved by the reward system in the brain, and it is found that disrupted functioning of the system leads to a failure to experience pleasure from social interactions and/or decreased need to anticipate/initiate them.

Studies on social motivation encompass the components which are linked with the stages of reward processing. Reward processing is dissected into the approach behavior in response to rewarding stimuli (social approach and avoidance motivation), anticipating the reward (wanting) and reaction on reward (liking). The other component of social motivation which is investigated is trust in others (trust).

Deficits of social motivation, including disrupted anticipation of social reward, are found to be crucial in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and in schizophrenia. The review of behavioral and neuroimaging studies on social motivation in ASD and in schizophrenia, including behavioral research and neuroimaging (fMRI), showed that disrupted social motivation in ASD is caused by decreased capacity for anticipating the rewarding value of social stimuli which occurred during social interaction. In schizophrenia the key factor of deficit in social motivation is limited trust in others. Although research on the role of social motivation in psychiatric disorders is a relatively new area, the results derived from studies on social motivation could bring inspiration for new therapeutic programs for patients with particular disorders.