Avoidance Motivation Research Articles

Revisiting the Power to Forgive: A Dyadic Approach for Determining the Relations Between Power, Self-Esteem, and Forgiveness in Romantic Relationships

Power pervades interpersonal relationships and can impact relationship-related outcomes (e.g., forgiveness). Here, we expected a positive association between power and forgiveness in two studies involving German and Israeli couples (N = 149/174 couples). Actor–partner interdependence mediator models showed the expected positive associations of actor’s power with both actor’s forgiveness and partner’s forgiveness. Independent self-esteem partially mediated and interdependent self-esteem completely mediated the power–forgiveness link for actors. Also, high experienced power was associated with high self-esteem, which in turn was positively related to benevolence motivation and negatively related to revenge and avoidance motivation. The implications of these findings are relevant for couple’s therapy and advance our understanding of associations between power and relationship variables. Future research may distinguish between authentic and instrumental forgiveness and use experimental settings.

Implicit motives as the missing link between visionary leadership, approach and avoidance motivation, and vision pursuit

An unresolved question in visionary leadership research is, why must visions be high in imagery to cause affective reactions and be motivationally effective? Research in motivation psychology has shown that pictorial cues arouse implicit motives. Thus, pictorial cues from vision-induced imagery should arouse a follower’s implicit motives just like a real image. Hence, our fundamental proposition is that follower implicit motives and follower approach motivation serially mediate the relationship between leader vision and followers’ vision pursuit. We also examine the case of negative leader visions, with the central propositions that a negative leader vision arouses a follower’s implicit fear motives and that the follower’s implicit fear motives and follower avoidance motivation serially mediate the relationship between negative leader vision and the follower’s fear-related behaviors. Lastly, we assert that multiple implicit follower motives aroused by a multithematic leader vision exert additive as well as interaction effects on the follower’s vision pursuit. Plain Language Summary An unresolved question in leader vision research concerns why visions need to be high in imagery in order to elicit affective reactions in followers and be motivationally effective? Research in motivation psychology has shown that pictorial cues can arouse a person's implicit motives. It would thus be reasonable to expect that pictorial cues from leader vision-induced imagery arouse a follower's implicit motives just like a real image. Based on this reasoning, our key proposition is that follower implicit motives and follower approach motivation serially mediate the relationship between leader vision and followers' vision pursuit. We also integrate the special case of negative leader visions into our theorizing, with the central propositions that a negative leader vision arouses a follower's implicit fear motives, and that the follower's implicit fear motives and follower avoidance motivation serially mediate the relationship between negative leader vision and the follower's fear-related behaviors. Lastly, based on the distinction between mono- and multithematic visions, the latter of which with the potential to arouse more than one implicit motive simultaneously, we assert that multiple implicit follower motives aroused by a multithematic leader vision exert additive as well as interaction effects on the follower's vision pursuit.

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT STRATEGY OF COPING WITH ENTREPRENEURIAL FAILURE STIGMA: A TWO-PATH THEORETICAL MODEL

Impression management strategy is an important way to cope with the stigma of failed entrepreneurial firms. However, most existing studies only focused on the process of impression management with a single strategy. Few studies have provided a systematic theoretical explanation on how to use different types of impression management strategies to cope with stigma. To fill this theoretical gap, a two-path model of impression management of entrepreneurial failure stigma was constructed, based on the two-component model of impression management. In addition, the mechanism of impression management strategy selection for failed entrepreneurial firms to cope with stigma was discussed. The findings of the theoretical model reveal two paths for the stigma management strategy of failed entrepreneurial firms: “avoidance motivation → defensive strategy of impression management” and “diluted motivation → acquisitive strategy of impression management.” Moreover, in the selection mechanism of strategy, the formation of impression motivation is affected by the stigma type of entrepreneurial failure, the social status of the firm organization, and the degree of stigma threat. In the face of justifiable stigma, the failed entrepreneurial firms form the avoidance motivation and then implement a defensive strategy of impression management. High social status firms adopt an acquisitive strategy of impression management to cope with the negative impact of entrepreneurial failure stigma. As the threat level of entrepreneurial failure stigma increases, the dilution motivation of the failed entrepreneurial firms to stigma becomes stronger, and the firms are more likely to adopt the acquisitive strategy of impression management. The two-path theoretical model provides decision support for failed entrepreneurial firms to formulate stigma management strategies and expands the research scope of entrepreneurial failure stigma.

Hidden cues for approach and avoidance motivation: implicit cognitive associations among patients with Nonadherence to HIV treatment

ABSTRACT Although patient motivation related to HIV treatment is widely acknowledged as a key factor related to consistent adherence and engagement with medical care, research has predominantly focused on explicit rather than implicit cognitive processes that underlie motivation. This study identified and examined implicit cognitive processes that influence approach and avoidance treatment motivation in a sample of 30 HIV patients with suboptimal adherence and poor engagement with medical care. Study participants were predominantly African American (87%) and gay/bisexual (63%). We examined 173 thought statements about treatment collected from patients during two previous studies. Thematic analysis described how implicit cognitive associations influenced patients to approach or avoid treatment and medical care. Findings revealed three major contextual categories of treatment-related thoughts: links with routines and habits, connections to physical changes and reactions, and interpersonal associations. Within each category, implicit cognitive associations about treatment in terms of these daily life events and experiences cued approach and avoidance motivational tendencies without the patient’s awareness. Findings from this study support the need for interventions that use implicit, less effortful approaches aimed at promoting adherence and improving the retention of patients with poor engagement.

In the face of self-threat: Why ambivalence heightens people’s willingness to act

The pursuit of desirable outcomes is often hindered by the threat of failure. While extant research largely characterizes self-threatening outcomes as eliciting an avoidance motivation, the current work demonstrates a novel intervention that can shift people towards an approach motivation: ambivalence towards the outcome. Within professional and personal domains, we show in seven experiments that considering both the pros and cons, rather than just the pros, of a self-threatening outcome encourages people to pursue it. We find that this heightened approach motivation occurs because ambivalence reduces an outcome’s desirability, in turn reducing self-threat, serially mediating the relationship between ambivalence and likelihood of pursuing the outcome. Further, we show that people do not intuit this effect and are likely not taking advantage of it. We conclude by discussing the managerial and theoretical implications of ambivalence in the face of self-threat.

The effects of CEO narcissism on corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility

This study examines how chief executive officer (CEO) narcissism influences a firm's activities associated with corporate social responsibility or irresponsibility (CSR or CSIR, respectively). Employing upper echelons theory, the approach–avoidance motivation of narcissists, and the overinvestment hypothesis, we predict that CEO narcissism positively affects both CSR and CSIR. We also propose that these relationships are negatively moderated by corporate governance structure, captured by the ratio of outside directors and the ownership of institutional investors. Empirical results from a panel dataset of U.S. firms for the 2000–2012 period provide support for our hypotheses. Our finding establishes a better theoretical and practical understanding of how a CEO's psychological personality can change a firm's behavior with respect to its social responsibility.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity differentiates sick from healthy faces: Associations with inflammatory responses and disease avoidance motivation

BackgroundHumans are able to discern the health status of others using olfactory and visual cues, and subsequently shift behavior to make infection less likely. However, little is known about how this process occurs. The present study examined the neural regions involved in differentiating healthy from sick individuals using visual cues. MethodsWhile undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, participants (N = 42) viewed facial photos of 30 individuals (targets) who had been injected with an inflammatory challenge--low-dose endotoxin (i.e., sick) or placebo (i.e., healthy), and rated how much they liked each face. We examined regions implicated in processing either threat (amygdala, anterior insula) or cues that signal safety (ventromedial prefrontal cortex [VMPFC]), and how this activity related to their liking of targets and cytokine levels (interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α) exhibited by the targets. ResultsPhotos of sick faces were rated as less likeable compared to healthy faces, and the least liked faces were those individuals with the greatest inflammatory response. While threat-related regions were not significantly active in response to viewing sick faces, the VMPFC was more active in response to viewing healthy (vs. sick) faces. Follow-up analyses revealed that participants tended to have lower VMPFC activity when viewing the least liked faces and the faces of those with the greatest inflammatory response. ConclusionsThis work builds on prior work implicating the VMPFC in signaling the presence of safe, non-threatening visual stimuli, and suggests the VMPFC may be sensitive to cues signaling relative safety in the context of pathogen threats.

Helping While Social Distancing: Pathogen Avoidance Motives Influence People's Helping Intentions during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The behavioral immune system (BIS) theory suggests that pathogen avoidance motives relate to greater behavioral avoidance against social interactions that pose potential risks of pathogen transmission. Based on the BIS theory, pathogen avoidance motives would decrease people’s helping behavior towards others. However, would pathogen avoidance motives decrease all types of helping behavior towards others during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (i.e., COVID-19) pandemic indiscriminately? In the present study, we conducted a within-subjects design to compare people’s helping intentions toward voluntary work with and without social contact. Specifically, participants (N = 1562) completed an online survey at the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in China measuring pathogen disgust sensitivity, state anxiety, and intentions to perform volunteer work with and without social contact. Results revealed that pathogen disgust sensitivity negatively predicted intentions to perform voluntary work with social contact yet had no influence on intentions to perform socially distanced voluntary work. Moreover, the effect of pathogen disgust sensitivity on socially distanced volunteering preference was mediated by the state anxiety people experienced during the pandemic. The findings have implications for understanding people’s helping behavior during the pandemic.

Effects of the calorie content of visual food stimuli and simulated situations on event-related frontal alpha asymmetry and event-related potentials in the context of food choices

Approach and avoidance tendencies play an important role in everyday food choices when choosing between high-caloric, rather unhealthy, and low-caloric, rather healthy options. On a neuronal level, approach and avoidance motivation have been associated with asymmetrical activity of the frontal cortex, often quantified by alpha power averaged over several seconds of resting electroencephalogram (EEG). Going beyond the analysis of resting EEG, the present study aimed to investigate asymmetrical frontal activity in direct response to food stimuli in an event-related design and in combination with event-related potentials (ERPs). Therefore, a sample of 56 young and healthy participants completed a food choice task. They were asked to choose from a selection of high-caloric and low-caloric foods which they would want to eat on a normal day (baseline), when being on a diet, and in a reward situation. On the behavioural level, there was a clear preference for low-caloric foods. Well in line with that, time-frequency analyses of alpha asymmetry revealed relatively stronger temporary (950–1175 ms) left-hemispheric frontal activity, that is, a stronger approach tendency, in response to low-caloric as compared to high-caloric foods. Furthermore, larger P300 for low-caloric foods indicated an increased task relevance of low-caloric foods in the baseline and the reward situation. In contrast, the late positive potential (LPP), an index of subjective value, was larger for high-as compared to low-caloric foods, reflecting the intrinsic rewarding properties of high-caloric foods. ERPs, but not frontal alpha asymmetry, were influenced by the situational context.

Avoidance Behaviour towards Digital Crowdsourcing Platforms: A Preliminary Study among New Freelancers

New innovations and the expansion of the Internet have led to a rising trend in crowdsourcing platforms, which has, in turn, changed the business model from face-to-face services to platform-based services. This trend heavily relies on digital experts and skilled users in an interconnected ecosystem. While the literature has widely discussed the concepts and benefits of digital crowdsourcing towards employers and employees, the majority of today's crowdsourcing platforms face challenges and various potential threats, especially among newcomers in this digital world. The work investigates the perceived threats towards the avoidance motivation and avoidance behavior among newcomers to digital crowdsourcing platforms. An online survey was performed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) among 142 newly-registered students who were actively involved in the digital workforce climate. The statistical results confirmed that avoidance motivation leads to avoidance behavior, while perceived threats and self-efficacy lead to perceived threats. Additionally, perceived threats are influenced by perceived severity. Contradictly, perceived threats did not significantly influence perceived susceptibility. The findings are useful not only for digital crowdsourcing platforms but also for policymakers.

Will I have sex to please you? Evaluating whether mindfulness buffers links between attachment and sexual motivations in daily life

Insecurely attached individuals are more likely to report more maladaptive sexual motivations that predict worse personal and interpersonal outcomes. Given that mindfulness has been linked with improved relationship and sexual experiences, and that these effects may be moderated by attachment, the current study examined the possible buffering role of trait mindfulness on the links between attachment insecurity and daily sexual motives. Participants from New Zealand (N = 70) took part in a daily diary study that overcame limitations associated with previous cross-sectional research in the area (e.g., recall and aggregation biases). Online measures of trait mindfulness and attachment were completed, before participants reported their sexual motivations on each day they had sex for the next 14 days. Results provided some evidence that trait mindfulness has a therapeutic effect among more anxiously attached persons insofar as it reduced the degree to which attachment concerns manifested in maladaptive daily sexual motivations. In contrast, trait mindfulness did not buffer (and in some cases intensified) the links between attachment avoidance and maladaptive sexual motives. No significant interactions were detected between attachment insecurity and mindfulness in the prediction of adaptive daily sexual motivations. These findings suggest that mindfulness may differentially affect the manifestations of anxious and avoidant attachment. Practical and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Perceived organizational politics, knowledge hiding and diminished promotability: how do harmony motives matter?

PurposeThis study aims to investigate an underexplored behavioral factor, knowledge hiding, that connects employees’ perceptions of organizational politics (POP) with their diminished promotability, while also considering the moderating role of employees’ harmony motives in this process.Design/methodology/approachThe research hypotheses are tested with multisource, three-round data collected among employees and their supervisors.FindingsEmployees’ beliefs about self-serving organizational decision-making increase their propensity to hide knowledge, which, in turn, diminishes their promotability. This intermediate role of knowledge hiding is more prominent when their disintegration avoidance motive is strong but less prominent when their harmony enhancement motive is strong.Practical implicationsA refusal to share knowledge with organizational colleagues, as a covert response to POP, can create a negative cycle for employees. They are frustrated with decision-making practices that are predicated on favoritism, but by choosing seemingly subtle ways to respond, they compromise their own promotion prospects. To avoid this escalation, employees should adopt an active instead of passive approach toward maintaining harmony in their work relationships.Originality/valueThis research contributes to extant research by detailing a hitherto overlooked reason that employees’ frustrations with dysfunctional politics may escalate into an enhanced probability to miss out on promotion opportunities. They respond to this situation by engaging in knowledge hiding. As an additional contribution, this study details how the likelihood of this response depends on employees’ harmony motives.

Paradoxical Effects of Performance Pressure on Employees' In-Role Behaviors: An Approach/Avoidance Model.

Performance pressure acts as a double-edged sword for employees. Based on an approach/avoidance framework, we theorize that performance pressure produces both positive and negative effects on employees’ in-role behaviors via approach motivation (i.e., self-objectification) and avoidance motivation (i.e., workplace anxiety), and work meaningfulness moderates employees’ reactions to performance pressure. We examine our hypotheses using data from a sample of 345 employees in various organizations. The results show that self-objectification provides an approach motive that mediates the positive indirect effect of performance pressure on employees’ in-role behaviors. However, workplace anxiety provides an avoidance motive that mediates the negative indirect effect of performance pressure on employees’ in-role behaviors. Work meaningfulness strengthens both the approach and avoidance tendencies that employees experience under performance pressure. Our findings have significant theoretical and managerial implications.

Temperamental contributions to state expressions of shyness in children

Temperamental shyness and sociability are conceptually and empirically distinct constructs that correspond to social avoidance and approach motivations, respectively. Accordingly, individuals with relatively high co-occurring levels of temperamental shyness and sociability are thought to experience an approach-avoidance motivational conflict. We examined the interactive influence of temperamental shyness and sociability on state expressions of shyness in 152 (73 girls) typically-developing children (Mage = 7.82 years, SD = 0.44). We coded state expressions of positive shyness (i.e., co-occurring gaze/head aversion and smiling) and non-positive shyness (i.e., gaze/head aversion without smiling) during a self-presentation task. Parents reported on children's temperamental shyness and sociability. Results revealed that temperamental sociability moderated the relation between temperamental shyness and expressions of positive shyness. Temperamental shyness was positively related to state expressions of positive shyness in children with high levels of sociability, but negatively related to state expressions of positive shyness in children with low levels of sociability. Since the interaction of temperamental shyness and sociability is presumed to reflect an approach-avoidance conflict, state expressions of positive shyness may reflect this psychological state. Individual differences in social approach motivations may differentiate the way temperamentally shy children express shyness during social encounters.

Religious Homogamy Affects the Connections of Personality and Marriage Qualities to Unforgiving Motives: Implications for Couple Therapy

In Ghana, collectivism holds people together in marital relationships, even if partners are religiously different. Married partners still hurt, betray, or offend each other and might develop avoidance or vengeful (i.e., unforgiving) motives. We investigated whether religious homogamy moderated connections of personality and marriage variables to unforgiving motives. Heterosexual married couples (N = 176 heterosexual married couples; N = 352 individuals; mean marriage duration 10.89 years) participated. Most identified as Christian (83.5% males; 82.3% females) or Muslim (11.9% males; 14.3% females). Couple religious homogamy was related directly to lower unforgiving motives. Religious homogamy did not moderate the connection between some personality variables (i.e., agreeableness and trait forgivingness) and unforgiving motives. Religiously unmatched couples tended to have greater unforgiveness at higher levels of neuroticism and lower forbearing, marital satisfaction, and marital commitment relative to religiously matched couples. One implication is that couple therapists need to assess partner neuroticism, marriage climate (i.e., satisfaction and commitment), and the general tendency to forbear when offended. Those can combine to produce unforgiving relationships, which might make progress in couple therapy improbable.

Disease Avoidance Motives Trade-Off Against Social Motives, Especially Mate-Seeking, to Predict Social Distancing: Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic

A range of studies have sought to understand why people’s compliance with social distancing varied during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent theory suggests that pathogen avoidance behavior is based not only on perceived risk but on a trade-off between the perceived costs of pathogen exposure and the perceived benefits of social contact. We hypothesized that compliance with social distancing may therefore be explained by a trade-off between pathogen avoidance and various social motives such as mate-seeking. Two studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that social distancing was positively associated with disease avoidance motives but negatively associated with social motives, especially mating motives. These associations remained after controlling for predictors identified by previous research, including risk perception and personality. Findings indicate that people who are more interested in seeking new romantic partners (e.g., young men) may be less inclined to socially distance and be more at risk of pathogen transmission.

Continuance intention in gamified mobile applications: A study of behavioral inhibition and activation systems

This study seeks to investigate the effects of Behavioral Activation System (BAS), known as approach motivation, and Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), known as avoidance motivation, that are expected to influence individuals’ post-adoption behaviors in gamified mobile applications. A survey-based research methodology was used, and the impacts of BAS and BIS on Information Systems Continuance are examined. The results show that reward responsiveness has the most significant effect on user satisfaction and continuance intention. Fun-seeking plays an essential role in continuance intention; however, it does not significantly affect satisfaction, as drive does not affect either satisfaction or continuance intention. BIS has a significant and negative effect on individual satisfaction, but no effects were found related to continuance intention. The findings of this study improve the understanding of the differences between these motivations related to Information Systems Continuance. Significant practical implications that gamified mobile application developers can adopt are proposed.

The Effect of Riba Avoidance and Product Knowledge on the Decision to Become a Customer of Islamic Banks

The objective of this study is to find out the impact of riba avoidance motivation and product knowledge towards decision to be Islamic banks customers. Previous studies found that Muslim societies chose Islamic banks because they are interest-free. However, other studies also found that most Islamic banks customers do not have sufficient knowledge about Islamic bank products. Using the quantitative method, this study surveyed the effect of riba avoidance and product knowledge towards intention becoming Islamic bank costumers. There were thirty respondents who were chosen accidentally. Questions were distributed manually to the Islamic banks' customers. Our study found that riba avoidance and product knowledge significantly affect the decision to become a customer of Islamic banks in Palu City. This is proven by the sig-F value of 0.000, which is smaller than Alpha 0.05. At the same time, partially, the motivation to riba avoidance and product knowledge has a significant effect on the decision to become a customer of Islamic banks. Our findings highlight that Islamic banks should focus on providing more free riba products to attract more Muslim customers. In addition, customers' knowledge of Islamic banks' products should also become the banks' focus for improvement.

Production and Inventory Dynamics under Ambiguity Aversion

We propose a production-cost smoothing model with Knightian uncertainty due to ambiguity aversion to study the joint behavior of production, inventories, and sales. Our model can explain four facts that previous studies find difficult to account for simultaneously: (i) the high volatility of production relative to sales, (ii) the low ratio of inventory-investment volatility to sales volatility, (iii) the positive correlation between sales and inventories, and (iv) the negative correlation between the inventory-to-sales ratio and sales. We find that the stock-out avoidance motive (Kahn 1987) emerges endogenously in our model, reconciling the long debate in the inventory literature over the production- cost smoothing and the stock-out avoidance models.

Does motivational intensity exist distinct from valence and arousal?

The motivational intensity model proposes that the strength of one's urge to approach or avoid a stimulus is the primary driver of cognitive broadening/narrowing (Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2010d; Harmon-Jones et al., 2012). However, it is unclear whether motivational intensity is truly distinct from well-established dimensions of valence and arousal. Here we found an overwhelmingly strong relationship between motivational intensity and valence across all studies. In Study 1, we operationalized motivational intensity on 2 response rating scales and had multiple groups of participants (total 150) rate their response of motivational intensity, valence, and arousal to 300 pictures. There was a very strong relationship between motivational intensity and valence (rs in excess of .9, in studies 1a and 1b), which challenges the idea that these 2 constructs are distinct. In contrast, motivational intensity ratings were not consistently positively related to arousal ratings, with only a moderate relationship found with avoidance motivation. In Study 2 we used an implicit measure of motivational intensity and valence and asked participants to classify their motivational intensity and valence in response to 100 pictures from Study 1. A high degree of correspondence was found between motivational intensity and valence on this measure. Overall, our findings are at odds with proposals in the literature that arousal can be used as a proxy for motivational intensity across the full approach-avoidance spectrum. Furthermore, these studies suggest that the cognitive effects attributed to motivational intensity in previous literature are best explained by valence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).