The Interplay Between Reward-Relevant Life Events and Trait Reward Sensitivity in Neural Responses to Reward Cues

The reward-hypersensitivity model posits that trait reward hypersensitivity should elicit hyper/hypo-approach motivation following exposure to recent life events that activate (goal striving and goal attainment) or deactivate (goal failure) the reward system, respectively. To test these hypotheses, we had 87 young adults with high trait reward (HRew) sensitivity or moderate trait reward (MRew) sensitivity report frequency of life events via the Life Event Interview. Brain activation was assessed during the functional MRI monetary-incentive-delay task. Greater exposure to goal-striving events was associated with higher nucleus accumbens (NAc) reward anticipation among HRew participants and lower orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) reward anticipation among MRew participants. Greater exposure to goal-failure events was associated with higher NAc and OFC reward anticipation only among HRew participants. This study demonstrated different neural reward anticipation (but not outcome) following reward-relevant events for HRew individuals compared with MRew individuals. Trait reward sensitivity and reward-relevant life events may jointly modulate reward-related brain function, which has implications for understanding psychopathology.

Reactive Risk-Taking: Anxiety Regulation Via Approach Motivation Increases Risk-Taking Behavior

Experimental research and real-world events demonstrate a puzzling phenomenon—anxiety, which primarily inspires caution, sometimes precedes bouts of risk-taking. We conducted three studies to test whether this phenomenon is due to the regulation of anxiety via reactive approach motivation (RAM), which leaves people less sensitive to negative outcomes and thus more likely to take risks. In Study 1 ( N = 231), an achievement anxiety threat caused increased risk-taking on the Behavioral Analogue Risk Task (BART) among trait approach-motivated participants. Using electroencephalogram in Study 2 ( N = 97), an economic anxiety threat increased behavioral inhibition system-specific theta activity, a neural correlate of anxiety, which was associated with an increase in risk-taking on the BART among trait approach-motivated participants. In a preregistered Study 3 ( N = 432), we replicated the findings of Study 1. These results offer preliminary support for the reactive risk-taking hypothesis.

Implicit motives as the missing link between visionary leadership, approach and avoidance motivation, and vision pursuit

An unresolved question in visionary leadership research is, why must visions be high in imagery to cause affective reactions and be motivationally effective? Research in motivation psychology has shown that pictorial cues arouse implicit motives. Thus, pictorial cues from vision-induced imagery should arouse a follower’s implicit motives just like a real image. Hence, our fundamental proposition is that follower implicit motives and follower approach motivation serially mediate the relationship between leader vision and followers’ vision pursuit. We also examine the case of negative leader visions, with the central propositions that a negative leader vision arouses a follower’s implicit fear motives and that the follower’s implicit fear motives and follower avoidance motivation serially mediate the relationship between negative leader vision and the follower’s fear-related behaviors. Lastly, we assert that multiple implicit follower motives aroused by a multithematic leader vision exert additive as well as interaction effects on the follower’s vision pursuit.

Reward-Related Dysfunctions in Children Developing Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder—Roles of Oppositional and Callous-Unemotional Symptoms

Objectives: Neurocognitive functions might indicate specific pathways in developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We focus on reward-related dysfunctions and analyze whether reward-related inhibitory control (RRIC), approach motivation, and autonomic reactivity to reward-related stimuli are linked to developing ADHD, while accounting for comorbid symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and callous-unemotional (CU) traits.Methods: A sample of 198 preschool children (115 boys; age: m = 58, s = 6 months) was re-assessed at age 8 years (m = 101.4, s = 3.6 months). ADHD diagnosis was made by clinical interviews. We measured ODD symptoms and CU traits using a multi-informant approach, RRIC (Snack-Delay task, Gift-Bag task) and approach tendency using neuropsychological tasks, and autonomic reactivity via indices of electrodermal activity (EDA).Results: Low RRIC and low autonomic reactivity were uniquely associated with ADHD, while longitudinal and cross-sectional links between approach motivation and ADHD were completely explained by comorbid ODD and CU symptoms.Conclusion: High approach motivation indicated developing ADHD with ODD and CU problems, while low RRIC and low reward-related autonomic reactivity were linked to developing pure ADHD. The results are in line with models on neurocognitive subtypes in externalizing disorders.

Infants’ Neural Responses to Helping and Hindering Scenarios

A growing literature suggests that preverbal infants prefer prosocial others over antisocial others (see Margoni & Surian, 2018). Although recent studies have begun to explore the neural mechanisms underlying these responses (Cowell & Decety, 2015; Gredebäck et al., 2015), these studies were based on relatively small samples and focused on distinct aspects of sociomoral responding. The current preregistered study systematically examined infants’ neural responses both to prosocial/antisocial interactions and to prosocial/antisocial characters, using larger samples and two distinct age groups. We found that 6-month-olds showed higher relative right frontal alpha power (indexing approach motivation) when viewing helping versus hindering scenarios, suggesting that prosocial (vs. antisocial) interactions elicit more approach motivation. Analyses of infants’ neural responses toward images of the helper versus hinderer revealed that both 6- and 12-month-old infants showed differential event-related potential (ERP) responses in the P400 and N290 components (indexing social perception) but not in the Nc component (indexing attentional allocation), suggestive that infants’ neural responses to prosocial versus antisocial characters reflect social processing. Together, these findings provide a more comprehensive account of infants’ responses to prosocial/antisocial interactions and characters, and support the hypothesis that both motivational and socially relevant processes are implicated in infants’ sociomoral responding.

Angry Women Are More Trusting: The Differential Effects of Perceived Social Distance on Trust Behavior

Accumulating evidence suggests that anger can have a strong impact on discrete trust behaviors. However, the mechanisms underlying how anger influences trust are still unclear. Based on the appraisal tendency framework, we hypothesized that perceived social distance would positively mediate the effect of anger on trust, and that gender would moderate this mediation. In Study 1, a 2 (Anger vs. Control) × 2 (Men vs. Women) factorial design was used to investigate this hypothesis. Results supported our predictions that anger drove women, but not men, to perceive smaller social distance, and thus sent more money to their counterparts in a trust game as compared to controls. In Study 2, social distance was manipulated, and a 2 (Low social distance vs. Control) × 2 (Men vs. Women) factorial design was used to critically test the causal role of the mediator, namely to examine the effect of perceived social distance on trust. Results showed that women, but not men, sent more money to their counterparts in the low social distance condition than in the control condition. Results of both studies indicate that the high certainty, higher individual control, and approach motivation associated with anger could trigger optimistic risk assessment, and thus more trust toward others in women, via perceiving smaller social distance to others.