Truth, control, and value motivations: the "what," "how," and "why" of approach and avoidance

Memory as a foundation for approach and avoidance decisions: A fertile area for research

Scant research has directly measured the extent episodic memory serves as the basis for decisions, particularly decisions to approach or avoid other people (i.e., social targets). In this theoretical paper, we survey the limited work showing the relationship between episodic memory and subsequent approach or avoidance decisions about social targets, including descriptions of significant limitations of past work. We then describe three important areas for future work in this domain (explicit memory, implicit memory, diagnosticity) as a framework to generate new foundational knowledge about the extent memory influences approach and avoidance decisions. Overall, the framework proposed in this work should lead to better understanding of the connection between memory and decision-making, especially decisions to approach or avoid social targets (i.e., other people).

Goal orientation shifts attentional focus and impairs reward-motivated memory

While motivation typically enhances memory, some studies show that, in certain contexts, motivation associated with rewards can impair memory. Goal states associated with motivation can impact attention, which in turn influences what information is encoded and later remembered. There is limited research on how different incentive contexts, which manipulate attentional orientation to memoranda, lead to either reward-motivated memory enhancements or impairments in item and relational memory. Here, we test how different reward-motivated states may narrow or broaden attention with downstream consequences on memoranda. In study 1, giving participants a rewarded timed goal during visual search impaired both their item and relational memory relative to un-timed participants who were simply told that they would be rewarded for searching regardless of speed (despite having equated time). In study 2, we show that giving participants an elaborative goal after visual search completion remediates item and relational memory deficits in the Feedback group. Finally, in study 3, we show that elaborative processing of target items during visual search resulted in reward-motivated memory benefits for the item, but not relational memory for the context in which the item was encoded. Together, these findings support a model where the goal-relevant alterations in attentional breadth to reward may ultimately filter what information is remembered or forgotten.

Dissecting the Hippocampal Regulation of Approach-Avoidance Conflict: Integrative Perspectives From Optogenetics, Stress Response, and Epigenetics

Psychiatric disorders are multifactorial conditions without clear biomarkers, influenced by genetic, environmental, and developmental factors. Understanding these disorders requires identifying specific endophenotypes that help break down their complexity. Here, we undertake an in-depth analysis of one such endophenotype, namely imbalanced approach-avoidance conflict (AAC), reviewing its significant dependency on the hippocampus. Imbalanced AAC is a transdiagnostic endophenotype, being a feature of many psychiatric conditions in humans. However, it is predominantly examined in preclinical research through paradigms that subject rodents to conflict-laden scenarios. This review offers an original perspective by discussing the AAC through three distinct lights: optogenetic modulation of the AAC, which updates our understanding of the hippocampal contribution to behavioral inhibition; the impact of environmental stress, which exacerbates conflict and strengthens the stress-psychopathology axis; and inherent epigenetic aspects, which uncover crucial molecular underpinnings of environmental (mal) adaptation. By integrating these perspectives, in this review we aim to underline a cross-species causal nexus between heightened hippocampal activity and avoidance behavior. In addition, we suggest a rationale to explore epigenetic pharmacology as a potential strategy to tackle AAC-related psychopathology. This review assumes greater significance when viewed through the lens of advancing AAC-centric diagnostics in human subjects. Unlike traditional questionnaires, which struggle to accurately measure individual differences in AAC-related dimensions, new approaches using virtual reality and computer games show promise in better focusing the magnitude of AAC contribution to psychopathology.

Processing of misinformation as motivational and cognitive biases

Misinformation can be broadly defined as false or inaccurate information created and spread with or without clear intent to cause harm. It travels fast and deep and persists despite debunking. It is well-documented that corrective messages and fact-checking efforts often fail to mitigate the effects or persistence of misinformation. In this article, we examine the persistence of misinformation as rooted in motivational and cognitive biases in information processing. While drawing on the frameworks of motivations that drive information seeking, sharing, and processing and various cognitive biases, we explicate mechanisms and processes that underlie the impact and persistence of misinformation. We conclude our article by discussing the potential utility of psychological inoculation as a prebunking strategy.

Associations Between Trait Boredom and Frequency of Cannabis, Alcohol, and Tobacco Use in College Students

Objective

Boredom is a common emotion associated with substance use in college students - a group already at risk for substance misuse. The purpose of this study is to understand how two types of trait boredom (susceptibility and proneness) in college students are associated with frequency of cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco use.

Method

Data were collected from an online survey completed by a sample of undergraduate students (N = 414, Mage = 19.55, 84.5% female; 64.3% White) enrolled at a large public university in the northwest. Multivariate logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between trait boredom and frequency of cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco use after controlling for age, sex, and race.

Results

Boredom susceptibility was a significant predictor of annual, monthly, and weekly cannabis and alcohol use, but only annual and monthly tobacco use. Boredom proneness was only a significant predictor for monthly alcohol use.

Conclusions

Findings were generally consistent across types of substances and frequency of use for boredom susceptibility, indicating students higher in susceptibility, rather than proneness, are a subgroup to target prevention interventions to alleviate boredom and subsequent maladaptive coping mechanisms.

Preclinical and clinical evidence on the approach-avoidance conflict evaluation as an integrative tool for psychopathology

The approach-avoidance conflict (AAC), i.e. the competing tendencies to undertake goal-directed actions or to withdraw from everyday life challenges, stands at the basis of humans' existence defining behavioural and personality domains. Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory posits that a stable bias toward approach or avoidance represents a psychopathological trait associated with excessive sensitivity to reward or punishment. Optogenetic studies in rodents and imaging studies in humans associated with cross-species AAC paradigms granted new emphasis to the hippocampus as a hub of behavioural inhibition. For instance, recent functional neuroimaging studies show that functional brain activity in the human hippocampus correlates with threat perception and seems to underlie passive avoidance. Therefore, our commentary aims to (i) discuss the inhibitory role of the hippocampus in approach-related behaviours and (ii) promote the integration of functional neuroimaging with cross-species AAC paradigms as a means of diagnostic, therapeutic, follow up and prognosis refinement in psychiatric populations.

Is Regulatory Focus Related to Condom Use, STI/HIV Testing, and Sexual Satisfaction?

Regulatory focus theory contends that when making decisions people are either more inclined to focus on avoiding negative consequences (more prevention-focused) or achieving pleasurable outcomes (more promotion-focused). Some research suggests that regulatory focus is related to health behaviors, although this has not been thoroughly investigated in the sexual health domain. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between regulatory focus (prevention, promotion) and sexual health. In an online survey of 409 youth from the U.S. (ages = 18-25; M_age = 23.5; 57.2% women; 74.1% White, 13.4% Asian, 10.5% Black, 9.8% Hispanic), we examined the relationship between regulatory focus and three sexual health outcomes: condom use, STI/HIV testing, and sexual satisfaction. Of youth in our sample, 31.8% had a dominant prevention-focus, while 54.8% had a dominant promotion-focus. Compared to youth who were more promotion-focused, more prevention-focused youth used condoms more frequently but reported less sexual satisfaction. No differences were found in rates of STI/HIV testing. This study lays the groundwork to investigate the dynamic role that regulatory focus may play in contributing to youths' sexual health. More experimental and longitudinal studies are needed to confirm the causal nature of the association between regulatory focus and sexual health.

Beyond Value in Moral Phenomenology: The Role of Epistemic and Control Experiences

Many researchers in moral psychology approach the topic of moral judgment in terms of value-assessing outcomes of behaviors as either harmful or helpful, which makes the behaviors wrong or right, respectively. However, recent advances in motivation science suggest that other motives may be at work as well-namely truth (wanting to establish what is real) and control (wanting to manage what happens). In this review, we argue that the epistemic experiences of observers of (im)moral behaviors, and the perceived epistemic experiences of those observed, serve as a groundwork for understanding how truth and control motives are implicated in the moral judgment process. We also discuss relations between this framework and recent work from across the field of moral psychology, as well as implications for future research.

Clinical governance breakdown: Australian cases of wilful blindness and whistleblowing

BACKGROUND

After their attempts to have patient safety concerns addressed internally were ignored by wilfully blind managers, nurses from Bundaberg Base Hospital and Macarthur Health Service felt compelled to 'blow the whistle'. Wilful blindness is the human desire to prefer ignorance to knowledge; the responsibility to be informed is shirked.

OBJECTIVE

To provide an account of instances of wilful blindness identified in two high-profile cases of nurse whistleblowing in Australia.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Critical case study methodology using Fay's Critical Social Theory to examine, analyse and interpret existing data generated by the Commissions of Inquiry held into Bundaberg Base Hospital and Macarthur Health Service patient safety breaches. All data was publicly available and assessed according to the requirements of unobtrusive research methods and secondary data analysis.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Data collection for the case studies relied entirely on publicly available documentary sources recounting and detailing past events.

FINDINGS

Data from both cases reveal managers demonstrating wilful blindness towards patient safety concerns. Concerns were unaddressed; nurses, instead, experienced retaliatory responses leading to a 'social crisis' in the organisation and to whistleblowing.

CONCLUSION

Managers tasked with clinical governance must be aware of mechanisms with the potential to blind them. The human tendency to favour positive news and avoid conflict is powerful. Understanding wilful blindness can assist managers' awareness of the competing emotions occurring in response to ethical challenges, such as whistleblowing.

Giving the Help That Is Needed

Social support is most effective when it meets recipients’ needs. Guided by regulatory mode theory, this article examines how support providers’ chronic motivational concerns with assessment and locomotion shape help provision. We hypothesized that stronger assessment concerns motivate helpers to “tailor” support efforts by offering support that meets helpees’ specific motivational concerns and not offering support that would fail to address these concerns. In contrast, we predicted that stronger locomotion concerns motivate helpers to offer both support that fits helpees’ needs and support that does not. The results of Studies 1 and 2, using hypothetical scenarios, were consistent with these hypotheses. Study 3 replicated these findings in support interactions among friend pairs, and also found that helper assessment predicted greater support tailoring, which in turn predicted helpees’ negative mood improvement. Chronic assessment and locomotion concerns direct support efforts and influence the extent to which support is beneficial.

The “Ought” Premise of Moral Psychology and the Importance of the Ethical “Ideal”

Researchers’ interest in the psychology of ethics has increased dramatically in the last 20 years. Because of the influence of “modern” moral philosophy on psychology, what has received most attention, and has even been taken by some to be an essential characteristic of morality, are oughts (i.e., duties and obligations). Consistent with some more recent advances in the psychological literature (and contemporary philosophy), we propose that this is not the only approach to moral value. Using regulatory focus theory as a lens, we suggest that more attention should also be paid to an important motivational alternative—ethical ideals (i.e. advances and aspirations). We review evidence that we believe supports the conclusion that ethics consists of (at least) 2 evaluative systems—not only a system of oughts that is concerned with maintaining obligations, but also a system of ideals that is concerned with attaining virtues.

Distress from Motivational Dis-integration: When Fundamental Motives Are Too Weak or Too Strong

Past research has shown that satisfying different kinds of fundamental motives contributes to well-being. More recently, advances in motivational theory have shown that z is also tied to the integration of different motives. In other words, well-being depends not only on maximizing effectiveness in satisfying specific motives, but also on ensuring that motives work together such that no individual motive is too weak or too strong. In this chapter, we review existing research to show that specific forms of psychological distress can be linked to specific types of motivational imbalance or dis-integration. Such disintegration can arise from either excessive weakness of a specific motive or the excessive strength and/or dominance of a specific motive, thereby inhibiting other motives. Possible neural correlates and avenues of intervention are discussed.