Motivated with joy or anxiety: Does approach-avoidance goal framing elicit differential reward-network activation in the brain?

Abstract

Psychological research on human motivation repeatedly observed that approach goals (i.e., goals to attain success) increase task enjoyment and intrinsic motivation more strongly than avoidance goals (i.e., goals to avoid failure). The present study sought to address how the reward network in the brain-including the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex-is involved when individuals engage in the same task with a focus on approach or avoidance goals. Participants reported stronger positive emotions when they focused on approach goals, but stronger anxiety and disappointment when they focused on avoidance goals. The fMRI analyses revealed that the reward network in the brain showed similar levels of activity to cues predictive of approach and avoidance goals. In contrast, the two goal states were associated with different patterns of activity in the visual cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum during success and failure outcomes. Representation similarity analysis further revealed shared and different representations within the striatum and vmPFC between the approach and avoidance goal states, suggesting both the similarity and uniqueness of the mechanisms behind the two goal states. In addition, the distinct patterns of activation in the striatum were associated with distinct subjective experiences participants reported between the approach and the avoidance conditions. These results suggest the importance of examining the pattern of striatal activity in understanding the mechanisms behind different motivational states in humans.

Keywords: Achievement goal; Approach/avoidance; Behavioral activation; Behavioral inhibition; Dopamine; Goal framing; Neuroimaging.

Fig. 1

Task in the approach, avoidance, and control conditions

Fig. 2

Behavioral results for the approach (“Apr”) and the avoidance (“Avd”) conditions

Fig. 3

(A) Striatum activity to cues predictive of the approach and avoidance goals respectively relative to the control condition. (B) Beta values extracted from the significant striatum cluster. Apr = approach, Avd = avoidance. Dashed lines represent activity in the control condition

Fig. 4

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra (SN) showed higher levels of activity to cues predictive of the approach and the avoidance goals relative to the control condition

Fig. 5

The activity in the striatum and vmPFC to success than failure outcomes in the ROI analysis

Fig. 6

Results from the representational similarity analysis for the approach (“Apr"), avoidance (“Avd”), and control conditions (“WS”). (A) The averaged similarity matrix for the striatum and vmPFC across all cues. p1: point 1 trials, p3: point 3 trials. (B) The pattern similarity was the highest for the same goal pairs (Apr-Apr: approach-approach pairs and Avd-Avd: avoidance-avoidance pairs), followed by pairs of stop-watch tasks with different goal frames (Apr-Avd; approach-avoidance pairs). The Apr-Avd pairs still had higher similarity than when they were paired with control tasks (WS-SW: watch-stop – stopwatch pairs)

Fig. 7

Lower similarity in the striatum representations between the approach and avoidance condition was associated with higher differences in subjective experience between the two conditions

Fig. 8

Whole-brain results for the success and failure outcomes for each goal frame condition