A mobile approach-avoidance task
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A mobile approach-avoidance task Hilmar G. Zech 1
&
Mark Rotteveel 2 & Wilco W. van Dijk 1 & Lotte F. van Dillen 1
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract 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. Keywords AAT . approach-avoidance . mobile . reaction times . force
A mobile approach-avoidance task Automatic approach-avoidance tendencies play a role in many of today’s societal problems. Addictions, for example, drive people to approach harmful substances (Mogg, Field, & Bradley, 2005), whereas phobias cause them to avoid things that are harmless (Rinck & Becker, 2007). Prejudice drives people to avoid individuals from another group (Bianchi, Carnaghi, & Shamloo, 2018) and overeating might involve people approaching food beyond fulfilling their caloric needs. Such approach-avoidance tendencies are difficult to measure using self-reports as they can influence behavior within splitseconds after a stimulus is encountered. Therefore, researchers have developed approach-avoidance tasks (AATs) that assess these tendencies behaviorally (Solarz, 1960). When the original AAT (Solarz, 1960) was redesigned to run on personal computers (Chen & Bargh, 1999; Rinck & Becker, 2007), this greatly increased the flexibility of the task and facilitated its application across many different research areas. Yet, although computerized AATs are more flexible than the original, custom-build AAT, they do not lend themselves well to field * Hilmar G. Zech [email protected] 1
Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
2
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
research, as they require specialized hardware that is not available in most households. To overcome this limitation, we developed a smartphone-based version of the AAT, which combines the behavioral properties of the original AAT with the flexibility and field-readiness provided by smartphones. In addition to these features, the mobile AAT introduces a novel measurement of response force, which could further inform approach-avoid
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