Journal
ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA
Volume 206, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103063
Keywords
Emotional valence; Approach; Avoidance; Manikin task; Valence-action bias
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 framework [636116]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Positive and negative events are known to trigger opposing action tendencies (approach vs. avoidance). Recently, we found that advance monetary incentive cues can override such valence-action biases. In the present study we tested whether symbolic emotional valence cues can lead to similar adjustments and facilitate performance regardless of the required action. To this end, we performed three closely related experiments in which valence prospect (positive vs. neutral; indicated by stimulus color) and action requirements (approach vs. avoid; indicated by stimulus shape) were manipulated in a trial-to-trial fashion. Orthogonal to this, valence prospect was either embedded in the cue or target stimulus in discrete blocks (cue-valence vs. target-valence blocks). Actual valence was presented in the form of emotional face stimuli after response execution, which mirrors monetary incentive manipulations. In two of the experiments, we observed a positive-approach bias in form of performance benefit for positive versus neutral valence trials, which was exclusive for approach actions. Although numerically more pronounced in target-valence blocks, the bias was not significantly diminished in cue- versus target-valence blocks. This opposes our prediction that emotional valence cues can diminish such biases and instead highlights the robustness of inherent mappings between emotional valence and action tendencies - even if this goes against the task goal.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available