(PS8-7) Tired Together or Tired Apart? Gender and Depression Moderate the Effect of Sleep Restriction on Sociability

Background:

It is well established that sleep influences functioning across psychological domains, but research on its impact on social processes remains in early stages. Studies suggest that sleep has a bidirectional relationship with various social cognitions, behaviors, and experiences (Gordon et al., 2017). However, only one study to date has directly examined the effect of sleep on the preference for engaging in activities with others versus alone, and they found that total sleep time did not significantly impact the number of face-to-face social interactions the following day (Moturu et al., 2011). Importantly, no studies have explored potential moderators of this relationship, despite evidence that the effects of sleep restriction vary across individuals and groups (Gordon et al., 2017). The present study examined the effect of experimentally restricted sleep on self-reported sociability, with gender and depression as moderators.

Methods:

Participants were 156 university students who completed a baseline assessment of depressive symptoms (CES-D; Radloff, 1977). Participants were randomly assigned to either a sleep restriction condition (≤5 hours) or a control condition (~8 hours), with sleep objectively monitored via actigraphy. Of the initial sample, 124 participants adhered to condition assignment and were included in analyses. The day after their night of manipulated sleep, participants completed an adapted Partner Choice Task (Fung et al., 1999), selecting whether they would prefer to engage in six activities (e.g., taking a walk, cooking, visiting a café) alone or with another person.

Results and

Conclusion:

In line with the authors’ original hypothesis, results revealed a significant three-way interaction between sleep condition, gender, and baseline depressive symptoms in predicting preference for solitary activities (b = -0.0867, p = 0.0365). Among women with moderate-to-high depressive symptoms, those in the sleep restriction condition endorsed preferring fewer solitary activities than those in the control group. Conversely, men with moderate-to-high depressive symptoms reported a greater preference for more solitude under sleep restriction compared to controls. No significant effects of sleep condition emerged for participants with low depressive symptoms.

These findings suggest that sleep deprivation does not have a uniform effect on sociability. Instead, depression appears to amplify the influence of sleep loss on social preferences, but in opposite directions for men and women. There is preliminary research to suggest that women might become more socially oriented under sleep loss (Fisseha et al., 2020), and it is possible that depression symptoms amplify this effect. Results highlight the importance of individual differences in understanding the sleep and social functioning.