The Effect Of The Motivational Dimecsional Of Affect On Approach-avoidance Behaviors

Study of emotion affecting approach-avoidance behavior has a long history, the previous common conclusion is the valence affected the direction of approach—avoidance behavior, emotional arousal affected the intensity of approach—avoidance behavior. But in recent years, research has found that the relationship of the emotion and the approach—avoidance behavior is not so simple, some negative emotion does not necessarily produce avoidance behavior, such as anger.Some high arousal of positive emotion does not necessarily lead to the approach behavior of higher strength, such as funny. Some researchers think that, the relationship between emotion and approach—avoidance behaviors is complicated, we need to consider factors other than the valence and arousal, for example: evolution, motivation, target correlation and personal importance, etc. Based on a series of empirical researches, Gable and Harmon-Jones (2010) proposed the motivational dimensional model of affect. The model suggested affect of low motivational intensity broadens cognitive processes, whereas affect of high motivational intensity narrows cognitive processes. However, most previous studies were limited because researchers at home and abroad examined only how the motivational dimensional of affects influences the cognitive process, such as attention, memory and cognitive classification, cognitive control, etc. No empirical research to explore how the motivational dimensional of affects influences the approach—avoidance behaviors. Based on the above, this research improved manikin task and examined how the motivational dimensional of affects influences the approach—avoidance behavior employing affective pictures to elicit the positive and negative emotions with differentiated motivational intensity.Based on previous studies, experiment1and experiment2used "the affective Simon effecf" as test indicator to examine the effectiveness of the experimental paradigm from the perspectives of conscious and unconscious processions respectively. Experiment1and experiment2adopted within subjects design, the number of participants in experiment1and experiment2are respectively36(15males,21females),40(19males,21females). Experiment1let participants make the approach—avoidance in conscious processing of emotional valence; Experiment2let participants make the approach-avoidance behaviors in the unconscious processing of emotional valence (cognitive classification of pictures).Repeated measures ANOVAs of Experiment1and experiment2showed that: the participants shown positive emotions, executed approaching behaviors faster; the participants watching the negative emotional pictures, performed avoidance reaction faster.both the experiment1and experiment2emerged "the affective Simon effect", meaning that the positive emotions facilitation approach behavior, negative emotion facilitation avoidance behavior. The results of the experiment1and experiment2Showed that the improved "manikin task" paradigm can be used to examine how emotions affect the approach—avoidance behaviors. At the same time, the results of experiment1and experiment2supported the theory of emotional motivational orientation.Based on the results of experiment1and experiment2. In experiment3, we use the improved "manikin task " paradigm to examine how the motivational dimension of emotions affect the approach—avoidance behaviors. In order to induce different motivational dimension of emotions and to control the arousal and valence of emotions,112pictures was employed from Chinese Affective Picture System(CAPS) and International Affective Picture System (LAPS), which included28high approached-motivation positive emotional pictures (food and lovely animals and babies, etc.),28low approached-motivation positive emotional pictures (pleasant scenery, smiling people, etc.),28high avoidance-motivation negative emotional pictures (dirty things, violent scenes, etc.) and28avoidance-motivation negative emotional pictures (crying people, the graveyard, hospital, etc.). In each type of emotional pictures, there were14pictures with people, and the other14without.4pictures were used in practice experiments. In order to verify the effectiveness of the selected pictures and provide experiment materials for experiment3,39participants were employed to assess the pleasure arousal and motivational dimension of these112emotional pictures on a Likert7type scale. Results of the rating demonstrated that:in positive emotional pictures, there are no significant differences on the pleasure and arousal between high approached-motivation positive emotional pictures and low approached-motivation positive emotional pictures, but in respect of motivational dimension, high approached-motivation positive emotional pictures were higher than low approached-motivation positive emotional pictures. In negative emotional pictures, there are no significant differences on the pleasure and arousal between high avoidance-motivation positive emotional pictures and low avoidance-motivation positive emotional pictures, but in respect of motivational dimension, high avoidance-motivation positive emotional pictures were higher than low avoidance-motivation positive emotional pictures.Experiment3adopted within subjects design.31participants made the approach—avoidance behaviors in the unconscious processing of emotional valence (cognitive classification of pictures). ANOVAs of experiment3showed that: compared with participants watching low approached-motivation positive emotional pictures, participants watching high approached-motivation positive emotional pictures executed approaching behaviors faster; compared with participants watching low avoidance-motivation positive emotional pictures, participants watching high avoidance-motivation positive emotional pictures executed approaching behaviors faster. Compared with low approached-motivation positive emotion, high approached-motivation positive emotion has a greater degree of facilitation to approach behavior; compared with low avoidance-motivation negative emotion, high avoidance-motivation negative emotion has a greater degree of facilitation to avoidance behavior. The result of experiment3supported the theory of emotional motivation orientation.