High Spider Fearfuls can Overcome their Fear in a Virtual Approach-Avoidance Conflict Task

The ability of animals to maximize benefits and minimize costs during approach-avoidance conflicts is an important evolutionary tool, but little is known about the emergence of specific strategies for conflict resolution. Accordingly, we developed a simple approach-avoidance conflict task in rats that pits the motivation to press a lever for sucrose against the motivation to step onto a distant platform to avoid a footshock delivered at the end of a 30 s tone (sucrose is available only during the tone). Rats received conflict training for 16 days to give them a chance to optimize their strategy by learning to properly time the expression of both behaviors across the tone. Rats unexpectedly separated into three distinct subgroups: those pressing early in the tone and avoiding later (Timers, 49%); those avoiding throughout the tone (Avoidance-preferring, 32%); and those pressing throughout the tone (Approach-preferring, 19%). The immediate early gene cFos revealed that Timers showed increased activity in the ventral striatum and midline thalamus relative to the other two subgroups, Avoidance-preferring rats showed increased activity in the amygdala, and Approach-preferring rats showed decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. This pattern is consistent with low fear and high behavioral flexibility in Timers, suggesting the potential of this task to reveal the neural mechanisms of conflict resolution.

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Sacrificing reward to avoid threat: Characterizing PTSD in the context of a trauma-related approach–avoidance conflict task.

Journal of Abnormal Psychology ◽

10.1037/abn0000528 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 129 (5) ◽

pp. 457-468

Author(s):

Shelby S. Weaver ◽

Emily B. Kroska ◽

Marisa C. Ross ◽

Anneliis Sartin-Tarm ◽

Kyrie A. Sellnow ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conflict Task ◽

Related Approach ◽

Approach Avoidance

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Trauma-Related Approach-Avoidance Conflict Task

PsycTESTS Dataset ◽

10.1037/t78657-000 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Shelby S. Weaver ◽

Emily B. Kroska ◽

Marisa C. Ross ◽

Anneliis Sartin-Tarm ◽

Kyrie A. Sellnow ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conflict Task ◽

Related Approach ◽

Approach Avoidance

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Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Reactivity

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803.23.2.77 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 77-84 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Matthew C. Whited ◽

Kevin T. Larkin

Keyword(s):

Blood Pressure ◽

Heart Rate ◽

Sex Differences ◽

Gender Roles ◽

Cardiovascular Reactivity ◽

Task Type ◽

Conflict Task ◽

Men And Women ◽

Conflicting Evidence ◽

Blood Pressure Responses

Sex differences in cardiovascular reactivity to stress are well documented, with some studies showing women having greater heart rate responses than men, and men having greater blood pressure responses than women, while other studies show conflicting evidence. Few studies have attended to the gender relevance of tasks employed in these studies. This study investigated cardiovascular reactivity to two interpersonal stressors consistent with different gender roles to determine whether response differences exist between men and women. A total of 26 men and 31 women were assigned to either a traditional male-oriented task that involved interpersonal conflict (Conflict Task) or a traditional female-oriented task that involved comforting another person (Comfort Task). Results demonstrated that women exhibited greater heart rate reactions than men independent of the task type, and that men did not display a higher reactivity than women on any measure. These findings indicate that sex of participant was more important than gender relevance of the task in eliciting sex differences in cardiovascular responding.

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Oral Approach Avoidance

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000458 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 66 (5) ◽

pp. 355-360 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sandra Godinho ◽

Margarida V. Garrido ◽

Oleksandr V. Horchak

Keyword(s):

Native Speakers ◽

Writing System ◽

Oral Movements ◽

Motivational States ◽

Oral Approach ◽

Approach Avoidance ◽

Abstract Words ◽

European Family

Abstract. Words whose articulation resembles ingestion movements are preferred to words mimicking expectoration movements. This so-called in-out effect, suggesting that the oral movements caused by consonantal articulation automatically activate concordant motivational states, was already replicated in languages belonging to Germanic (e.g., German and English) and Italic (e.g., Portuguese) branches of the Indo-European family. However, it remains unknown whether such preference extends to the Indo-European branches whose writing system is based on the Cyrillic rather than Latin alphabet (e.g., Ukrainian), or whether it occurs in languages not belonging to the Indo-European family (e.g., Turkish). We replicated the in-out effect in two high-powered experiments ( N = 274), with Ukrainian and Turkish native speakers, further supporting an embodied explanation for this intriguing preference.

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Instruction-Based Approach-Avoidance Effects

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000282 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 62 (3) ◽

pp. 161-169 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Pieter Van Dessel ◽

Jan De Houwer ◽

Anne Gast ◽

Colin Tucker Smith

Keyword(s):

Implicit Association Test ◽

Avoidance Training ◽

Social Groups ◽

Implicit Association ◽

Approach And Avoidance ◽

Evaluative Priming ◽

Blacks And Whites ◽

Approach Avoidance ◽

Implicit And Explicit ◽

Explicit Measures

Prior research suggests that repeatedly approaching or avoiding a certain stimulus changes the liking of this stimulus. We investigated whether these effects of approach and avoidance training occur also when participants do not perform these actions but are merely instructed about the stimulus-action contingencies. Stimulus evaluations were registered using both implicit (Implicit Association Test and evaluative priming) and explicit measures (valence ratings). Instruction-based approach-avoidance effects were observed for relatively neutral fictitious social groups (i.e., Niffites and Luupites), but not for clearly valenced well-known social groups (i.e., Blacks and Whites). We conclude that instructions to approach or avoid stimuli can provide sufficient bases for establishing both implicit and explicit evaluations of novel stimuli and discuss several possible reasons for why similar instruction-based approach-avoidance effects were not found for valenced well-known stimuli.

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