They also prepared unpleasant drinks for them to taste. In a 1992 study, researchers showed emotional movie clips to three groups of people: some with no known mental illness, some with depression, and some with schizophrenia. One of the possible symptoms of schizophrenia is an inability to show or express emotion.

Schizophre n ia is a mental health disorder that can cause people to experience hallucinations, delusions, and thought patterns that distort reality. In the case of blunted affect, these disorders may decrease your ability to express emotion: Schizophrenia That means the disorder prevents or reduces your ability to function the same way other people do. What are common risk factors for blunted affect?īlunted affect is a symptom of several disorders. People who have a constricted affect show some emotion but less than most other people show. People who have a blunted affect show very little outward emotion. People who have a flat affect show virtually no outward evidence of any emotion. How much emotion people display is on a continuum: It’s possible to have blunted affect (little appearance of emotion) with or without emotional blunting (not feeling emotions). When you experience emotional blunting, you aren’t feeling your emotions very strongly. In other words, there’s a mismatch between what you’re feeling and what other people may think you’re feeling.īlunted affect is different from emotional blunting.

If you have a blunted affect, your outward appearance seems to suggest that you aren’t feeling strong emotions, even when you’re talking about emotional experiences. People with blunted affect don’t express emotions as obviously as most people do. It refers to the appearance of emotion through tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and body language.

Flat vs blunted affect