Motivations and Emotivations: Approach, Avoidance, and Other Tendencies in Motivated and Emotional Behavior

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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