The part of the brain responsible for fear, arousal, and pleasure may not be as active as it is in people who don’t have a flat affect. However, it’s theorized that it’s probably due to abnormal brain activity.

Lack of changing pitch or tone in speechĮxperts don’t know what exactly causes flat affect.Little to no emotional facial expression.Instead, it’s about how emotions are expressed and oriented. It’s important to note that flat affect doesn’t indicate the absence of emotions. The signs and symptoms of flat affect can vary depending on the person.

Emotional blunting may improve if and when mental health symptoms improve. Sometimes they report having no emotions at all, which may be due to various mental health conditions or substance use.įlat affect tends to be more prominent and chronic over time. People with emotional blunting often describe themselves as feeling apathetic or numb to most stimuli. People with a flat affect do not smile, cry, or show nonverbal cues of anger or shock in the same way most people do. Emotional Bluntingįlat affect refers to having very little to no emotional reactions, while emotional blunting indicates having a limited amount of emotional reactions. However, both flat and blunted affect are considered negative symptoms of psychosis. Blunted affect may be more common in mood and anxiety disorders. 1Īlthough some people use the terms interchangeably, flat affect refers to a lack of response to emotional material, whereas blunted affect describes a more constricted or reduced response. Flat affect is common in schizophrenia but also prevalent in other psychotic disorders or neurodevelopmental conditions.

People with a flat affect rarely show emotions on their faces and do not appear to have heightened reactions to emotionally charged information. Flat affect is a symptom of numerous mental health conditions.

A flat affect