The effect of modifying automatic action tendencies on overt avoidance behaviors

Abstract

We used the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) to examine the role of automatic action tendencies. We hypothesized that, after manipulation of automatic action tendencies, participants would be more likely to approach feared objects when compared with participants in a control condition. Participants were instructed to push or pull a joystick, resulting in contamination-related and neutral pictures moving progressively away from or toward them, respectively. We manipulated approach by building a contingency between the arm movement and the picture type in the active condition but not in the control condition. Consistent with our hypothesis, participants in the active manipulation group showed facilitated automatic approach tendencies and reduced avoidance tendencies for contamination-related stimuli and completed more steps approaching their feared objects in a behavioral approach test compared with participants in the control group. Our results suggest that automatic action tendencies may play an important role in the maintenance of fear-related behavioral avoidance.

Figure 1

Approach–Avoidance Task pull and push bias scores by group and time. Bias scores for both response directions are calculated as follows: response latency for contamination-related pictures – response latency for neutral pictures. Higher pull bias scores indicate greater relative difficulty approaching threat, whereas smaller push bias scores indicate greater relative avoidance of threat.