A mobile approach-avoidance task

• Published in: Behavior research methods Vol. 52; no. 5; pp. 2085 - 2097
• Main Authors: Zech, Hilmar G., Rotteveel, Mark, van Dijk, Wilco W., van Dillen, Lotte F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.10.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Addictions; Adolescent; Adult; Anger; Avoidance behavior; Avoidance Learning; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Cognitive Psychology; Computers; Female; Happiness; Humans; Male; Psychology; Reaction Time; Reaction time task; Reward; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult; mobile; reaction times; force; AAT; approach-avoidance
• ISSN: 1554-3528; 1554-351X; 1554-3528
• DOI: 10.3758/s13428-020-01379-3

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.