A behavioral route to dysfunctional representations: The effects of training approach or avoidance tendencies towards novel animals in children

Emotion Regulation and Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Effect of Varying Phonological Working Memory Demands

Objective: Findings from extant studies of the relationship between ADHD-related emotion regulation and working memory deficits have been equivocal, and their correlational designs preclude inferences about the functional relationship between working memory demands and emotion regulation. This study aimed to experimentally examine the functional relationship between varying working memory demands and ADHD-related emotion regulation deficits. Method: Overt emotion regulation behaviors were coded while children with and without ADHD completed experimental tasks that manipulated low and high working memory demands. Results: Compared with typically developing children, children with ADHD exhibited large-magnitude overall emotion expression deficits, disproportionately greater self-criticism during high working memory conditions, and disproportionately greater positive emotion expression during low working memory demand conditions. Conclusion: These findings suggest that working memory demands are functionally related to emotion regulation deficits exhibited by children with ADHD and may explicate variability of emotion regulation difficulties related to environmental demands.

Does approaching puppies and avoiding a dead cat improve the effectiveness of approach-avoidance training for changing the evaluation of feared stimuli?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Approach-avoidance training (AAT) is a procedure for changing people's likes and dislikes that involves executing repeated approach (e.g., pulling a joystick towards yourself) and avoidance actions (e.g., pushing a joystick away from yourself) in response to target stimuli. Typically, this leads to approached stimuli being evaluated more positively than avoided stimuli. However, the evidence that AAT can change evaluations of feared stimuli is mixed. In this preregistered study, we wanted to investigate the effectiveness of a novel version, compared to a more typical version, of AAT for changing the evaluation of fear conditioned stimuli.

METHODS

After a differential fear conditioning phase, participants (N = 80) were randomly allocated to two conditions: In the novel AAT, participants repeatedly approached one positive picture (i.e., puppies) and avoided one negative picture (i.e., a dead cat) in addition to approaching and avoiding the conditioned stimuli. Participants' evaluations of the stimuli were assessed with explicit ratings and an affective priming task.

RESULTS

We found evidence for the effectiveness of approach-avoidance training to change evaluations of fear conditioned stimuli. However, we found no evidence for the superiority of our novel version of the AAT procedure.

LIMITATIONS

The sample size of our study was quite small, limiting the statistical power to detect small effects.

CONCLUSIONS

Both a typical and an adjusted version of the AAT procedure proved successful to change conditioned negative evaluations. We compare our findings to previous studies showing limited effectiveness of the AAT procedure with feared stimuli.

The influence of pre-training evaluative responses on approach-avoidance training outcomes

Approach-avoidance training (AAT) has been shown to be effective in both clinical and laboratory research. However, some studies have failed to show the effects of AAT. Therefore, finding moderators of the AAT effect is a priority for further research. We investigate the moderating effect of pre-training evaluative responses towards familiar AAT targets. In particular, we test predictions: (a) that congruent responses (i.e. approach to positive targets and avoidance of negative targets) increase liking, whereas incongruent responses decrease liking; (b) that training is more effective when it can strengthen existing positivity or negativity; and (c) that ambivalence increases AAT effects. Two experiments (total N = 132) implemented an AAT with local soft-drink brands after measuring initial positive/negative explicit evaluative components and implicit liking towards the brands. Results show no reliable evidence for training effects on consumption or rating of drinks, but participants showed more implicit liking of approached drinks than avoided drinks. Furthermore, the magnitude of implicit liking measured pre-training was positively related to the size of the training effect. Ambivalence had no direct effect on the training outcomes. These results partially support the congruency prediction and underline the importance of implicit liking prior to AAT as a moderator for AAT effects.

Battle of plates: a pilot study of an approach–avoidance training for overweight children and adolescents

Objective

Approach–avoidance training (AAT) is a promising approach in obesity treatment. The present study examines whether an AAT is feasible and able to influence approach tendencies in children and adolescents, comparing implicit and explicit training approaches.

Design/Setting/Subjects

Fifty-nine overweight children and adolescents (aged 8–16 years; twenty-six boys) participated in an AAT for food cues, learning to reject snack items and approach vegetable items. Reaction times in the AAT and an implicit association test (IAT) were assessed pre- and post-intervention.

Results

A significant increase in the AAT compatibility scores with a large effect (η2=0·18) was found. No differences between the implicit and explicit training approaches and no change in the IAT scores were observed.

Conclusions

Automatic tendencies in children can be trained, too. The implementation of AAT in the treatment of obesity might support the modification of an unhealthy nutrition behaviour pattern. Further data from randomized controlled clinical trials are needed.

Implicit and explicit evaluations of feminist prototypes predict feminist identity and behavior

Many people who endorse gender equality do not personally identify as feminists. The present research offers a novel explanation for this disconnect by examining people’s attitudes toward feminist prototypes—the central, representative feminist that comes to mind when they think of feminists as a group. Results from two samples support the hypothesis that both implicit and explicit attitudes toward feminist prototypes predict unique variance in feminist identity beyond gender-equality attitudes. Results from a second study show feminist identity to mediate between implicit prototypes and self-reported willingness to engage in feminist behaviors. Lastly, a third study shows feminist identity to mediate between implicit prototypes and actual feminist behavior. This is the first study to specifically examine the role of implicit attitudes and prototype favorability in understanding feminist identity and behavior, and the results suggest that promoting positive prototypes of feminists may be an effective route to encouraging feminist identity.

The effects of verbal information and approach-avoidance training on children's fear-related responses

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

This study examined the effects of verbal information and approach-avoidance training on fear-related cognitive and behavioural responses about novel animals.

METHODS

One hundred and sixty children (7-11 years) were randomly allocated to receive: a) positive verbal information about one novel animal and threat information about a second novel animal (verbal information condition); b) approach-avoidance training in which they repeatedly pushed away (avoid) or pulled closer (approach) pictures of the animals (approach-avoidance training), c) a combined condition in which verbal information was given prior to approach-avoidance training (verbal information + approach-avoidance training) and d) a combined condition in which approach-avoidance training was given prior to verbal information (approach-avoidance training + verbal information).

RESULTS

Threat and positive information significantly increased and decreased fear beliefs and avoidance behaviour respectively. Approach-avoidance training was successful in training the desired behavioural responses but had limited effects on fear-related responses. Verbal information and both combined conditions resulted in significantly larger effects than approach-avoidance training. We found no evidence for an additive effect of these pathways.

LIMITATIONS

This study used a non-clinical sample and focused on novel animals rather than animals about which children already had experience or established fears. The study also compared positive information/approach with threat information/avoid training, limiting specific conclusions regarding the independent effects of these conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study finds little evidence in support of a possible causal role for behavioural response training in the aetiology of childhood fear. However, the provision of verbal information appears to be an important pathway involved in the aetiology of childhood fear.

Effects of Approach-Avoidance Training on the Extinction and Return of Fear Responses

Background and Objectives

Exposure therapy for anxiety involves confronting a patient with fear-evoking stimuli, a procedure based partially on Pavlovian extinction. Exposure and other extinction-based therapies usually lead to (partial) reduction of fear symptoms, but a substantial number of patients experience a return of fear after treatment. Here we tested whether the combination of fear extinction with modification of approach-avoidance tendencies using an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) would result in the further reduction of conditioned fear and/or help prevent return of fear after extinction.

Methods

Two groups of participants underwent a fear acquisition procedure during which pictures of one neutral object were sometimes paired with shock (CS⁺), whereas pictures of another neutral object were not (CS⁻). The next day, in a fear extinction procedure, both objects were presented without shock. During the subsequent joystick AAT, one group primarily pulled CS⁺ pictures towards themselves and pushed CS⁻ pictures away from themselves; reversed contingencies applied for the other group.

Results

Approach training was effective in modifying conditioned action tendencies, with some evidence for transfer to a different approach/avoidance task. No group differences in subjective fear or physiological arousal were found during subsequent post- training and return-of-fear testing.

Limitations

No reliable return-of-fear was observed in either group for either subjective or physiological fear measures.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that approach training may be of limited value for enhancing the short- and long-term effects of extinction-based interventions.

Factors Predicting Youth Anxiety Severity: Preliminary Support for a Standardized Behavioral Assessment of Parental and Youth Avoidance Behaviors

Anxiety severity in youth is associated with a host of negative outcomes including poor response to treatment. Thus, a better understanding of factors that contribute to anxiety severity is needed. Such factors may include parental anxiety as well as anxiety-related approach and avoidance behaviors in both children and parents. In this study, we examined automatic behavioral tendencies as a method of quantifying anxiety-related approach and avoidance behaviors in children and their parents. Clinically anxious youth (N = 19) with mixed anxiety diagnoses and their parents completed an approach-avoidance task (AAT) comprising different emotional expressions. Our results suggest that in addition to parent report of youth anxiety, both youth and parent automatic avoidance biases predict clinician-rated youth anxiety severity accounting for 62% of the variance in clinician-rated youth anxiety. These results suggest that the AAT may be a useful measure of automatic behavioral tendencies in clinically anxious youth and their parents and that these factors may be relevant to youth anxiety severity.

Effects of approach-avoidance training on implicit and explicit evaluations of neutral, angry, and smiling face stimuli

A growing body of evidence shows that the prolonged execution of approach movements towards stimuli and avoidance movements away from them affects their evaluation. However, there has been no systematic investigation of such training effects. Therefore, the present study compared approach-avoidance training effects on various valenced representations of one neutral (Experiment 1, N = 85), angry (Experiment 2, N = 87), or smiling facial expressions (Experiment 3, N= 89). The face stimuli were shown on a computer screen, and by means of a joystick, participants pulled half of the faces closer (positive approach movement), and pushed the other half away (negative avoidance movement). Only implicit evaluations of neutral-expression were affected by the training procedure. The boundary conditions of such approach-avoidance training effects are discussed.

Motion as motivation: using repetitive flexion movements to stimulate the approach system

Research suggests that having a healthy approach system is critical for adaptive emotional functioning. The goal of the current study (n=186 undergraduates) was to determine the efficacy of an easy-to-disseminate and cost-efficient strategy for stimulating this system. The experiment tested the effects of repeated flexion movements (rFM) on approach system activation as measured by both self-report (BAS scales) and behavior. The results showed that rFM increased approach system motivation in men but not women. Men who completed the rFM task reported significantly greater levels of fun-seeking motivation than men in the control task. Moreover, the rFM task led to changes in actual behavior. Men who completed the rFM task exhibited significantly greater persistence on a difficult laboratory task than men in the control task. In contrast, women who completed the rFM task reported significantly lower levels of fun seeking and tended to exhibit less persistence on a difficult laboratory task than women in the control task. These results provide support for embodied theories of emotion as well as additional evidence for a gender difference in approach-avoidance tendencies.

Approach and Avoidance Tendencies in Spider Fearful Children: The Approach-Avoidance Task

Fear in children is associated with the tendency to avoid situations related to the fear. In this study, the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) was evaluated as a test of automatic behavioral avoidance tendencies in children. A sample of 195 children aged between 9 and 12 years completed an AAT, a Behavioral Assessment Task (BAT), and two spider fear questionnaires. The results indicate that all children showed an automatic avoidance tendency in response to spider pictures, but not pictures of butterflies or neutral pictures. Girls who reported more fear of spiders on the self-reports and behaved more anxiously during the BAT also showed a greater avoidance tendency in the AAT. These relationships were absent in boys.