Flipbook

CHAPTER 7 166 processed information, affect, and the direction of behavior (i.e., approach or avoidance). When in an approach orientation, the processing of positive information, the experience of positive affect, and the execution of approach behavior are facilitated. In an avoidance mode, the opposite applies (Strack & Deutsch, 2004). These are implicit cognitive processes, which means that they may occur unintentionally or outside conscious awareness, and are difficult to control (Moors & De Houwer, 2006). Approach toward a fearful stimulus may contribute to the fear- decreasing effects of exposure by modifying motivational orientation. The effect of approach and avoidance behavior on stimulus evaluation has been widely investigated. Firstly, the valence of previously neutral stimuli is changed by approach and avoidance behavior. Pushing the palm of one’s hand up against the bottom of a table, which activates the flexor muscle of the arm (associated with ‘pulling’; i.e., approach), led to positive evaluations of a previously neutral stimulus, whereas pressing the hand against the top of the table, which activates the extensor muscle (associated with ‘pushing’, i.e., avoidance) led to more negative evaluations (Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993). Additionally, a similar manipulation of avoidance behavior decreased palatable food intake, whereas approach increased consumption (Förster, 2003). On the other hand, a study in which approach (manipulated by pulling a joystick) toward pictures of faces with a neutral expression led to a more positive evaluation of these faces, whereas avoidance (pushing the joystick away) induced a negative evaluation (Woud, Becker, & Rinck, 2008), was not replicated (Vandenbosch & De Houwer, 2011). Secondly, avoidance behavior and behavioral inhibition change the response to, and evaluation of , positive stimuli. Avoidance-retraining of an approach bias to alcohol stimuli in people with drinking problems, using a joystick, changed automatic action tendencies to approach alcohol, decreased the amount of alcohol consumed in a subsequent taste test (Wiers, Rinck, Kordts, Houben, & Strack, 2010), and improved treatment outcome one year later (Wiers, Eberl, Rinck, Becker, & Lindenmeyer, 2011). In a theoretically similar line of studies, behavioral inhibition,