Effects of diversity versus segregation on automatic approach and avoidance behavior towards own and other ethnic groups

Towards the self and away from the others: evidence for self-prioritization observed in an approach avoidance task

Processing advantages arising from self-association have been documented across various stimuli and paradigms. However, the implications of "self-association" for affective and social behavior have been scarcely investigated. The approach-avoidance task (AAT) offers an opportunity to investigate whether the privileged status of the "self" may also translate into differential evaluative attitudes toward the "self" in comparison to "others". In the current work, we first established shape-label associations using the associative-learning paradigm, and then asked the participants to engage in an approach-avoidance task to test whether attitudinal differences induced on the account of self-association lead to participants having different approach-avoidance tendencies toward the "self-related" stimuli relative to the "other-related" stimuli. We found that our participants responded with faster approach and slower avoidance tendencies for shapes associated with the "self" and slower approach and faster avoidance tendencies for the shapes associated with the "stranger." These results imply that "self-association" may lead to positive action tendencies toward "self-associated" stimuli, and at the same time lead to neutral or negative attitudes toward stimuli not related to the "self". Further, as the participants responded to self-associated vs. other-associated stimuli cohorts, these results may also have implications for the modulation of social group-behaviors in favor of those like the self and against those in contrast to the self-group.

A mobile approach-avoidance task

Approach and avoidance tendencies have helped explain phenomena as diverse as addiction (Mogg, Field, & Bradley, 2005), phobia (Rinck & Becker, 2007), and intergroup discrimination (Bianchi, Carnaghi, & Shamloo, 2018; Degner, Essien, & Reichardt, 2016). When the original approach-avoidance task (AAT; Solarz, 1960) that measures these tendencies was redesigned to run on regular desktop computers, it made the task much more flexible but also sacrificed some important behavioral properties of the original task-most notably its reliance on physical distance change (Chen & Bargh, 1999). Here, we present a new, mobile version of the AAT that runs entirely on smartphones and combines the flexibility of modern tasks with the behavioral properties of the original AAT. In addition, it can easily be deployed in the field and, next to traditional reaction time measurements, includes the novel measurement of response force. In two studies, we demonstrate that the mobile AAT can reliably measure known approach-avoidance tendencies toward happy and angry faces both in the laboratory and in the field.

The online-VAAST: A short and online tool to measure spontaneous approach and avoidance tendencies

Among the great variety of approach/avoidance tasks, the Visual Approach/Avoidance by the Self Task (VAAST, Rougier et al., 2018) appears to be a promising tool. Previous work showed that the VAAST leads to large and replicable compatibility effects (e.g., faster response time to approach positive stimuli and avoid negative stimuli than the reverse). In the present contribution, we provide an online and easy-to-use version of the VAAST (namely, the online-VAAST). Across four experiments, we show that the online-VAAST produces effects that are of similar magnitude to those of the lab version of this task. Specifically, we obtained compatibility effects when using positive/negative words (Experiment 1), positive/negative images (Experiment 2), French/North-African first names (Experiment 3), and European American/African American first names (Experiment 4). Moreover, these effects emerged with culturally different populations (i.e., Americans in Experiments 1, 2, and 4, French in Experiment 3). Overall, the online-VAAST could be of great interest for all researchers interested in measuring approach/avoidance tendencies: Its specificities allow reaching large samples both offline and online with no accessibility constraints regarding programming abilities or program copyright.