Social anhedonia, social networks, and psychotic-like experiences: A test of social deafferentation.

Social connection is robustly associated with physical and mental health. So important is social connection that it features prominently in several etiological theories of serious psychopathology. Most notably, the social deafferentation hypothesis of schizophrenia posits that social anhedonia (SA) and isolation cause neural changes that produce psychosis. Here, we test several tenants of this theory by examining the relation between SA, psychotic-like experiences (PLE), and social networks. We find that SA and PLE are related to social networks, and that the relation between SA and PLE can be explained, in part, by the impact of SA on social networks.