Motivated behaviors vary widely across individuals and are controlled by a range of environmental and intrinsic factors. However, due to a lack of objective measures, the role of intrinsic v. extrinsic control of motivation in psychiatric disorders remains poorly understood.

We developed a novel multi-factorial behavioral task that separates the distinct contributions of intrinsic v. extrinsic control, and determines their influence on motivation and outcome sensitivity in a range of contextual environments. We deployed this task in two independent cohorts (final in-person N = 181 and final online N = 258), including individuals with and without depression and anxiety disorders.

There was a significant interaction between group (controls, depression, anxiety) and control-condition (extrinsic, intrinsic) on motivation where participants with depression showed lower extrinsic motivation and participants with anxiety showed higher extrinsic motivation compared to controls, while intrinsic motivation was broadly similar across the groups. There was also a significant group-by-valence (rewards, losses) interaction, where participants with major depressive disorder showed lower motivation to avoid losses, but participants with anxiety showed higher motivation to avoid losses. Finally, there was a double-dissociation with anhedonic symptoms whereby anticipatory anhedonia was associated with reduced extrinsic motivation, whereas consummatory anhedonia was associated with lower sensitivity to outcomes that modulated intrinsic behavior. These findings were robustly replicated in the second independent cohort.

Together this work demonstrates the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic control on altering motivation and outcome sensitivity, and shows how depression, anhedonia, and anxiety may influence these biases.