A new look at sensorimotor aspects in approach/avoidance tendencies: The role of visual whole-body movement information

Toward the use of approach/avoidance tendencies as attitude measures: Individual‐ and group‐level variability of the ingroup bias

“…The main goal of this experiment was to test whether approach/avoidance tasks could produce intergroup effects varying across participants. We chose the VAAST because Rougier et al () showed that this task produced strong and reliable compatibility effects and we used the Manikin task because Krieglmeyer and Deutsch () found that this task produced larger compatibility effects than the famous Joystick task. Beyond producing large compatibility effects and contrary to other approach/avoidance tasks (e.g., Joystick task), these tasks are also unambiguous regarding the interpretation of the approach/avoidance actions they implement (Rougier et al, ; Seibt et al, ; and see the Section 5).…”

“…To estimate our sample size for sufficient power (80%), we relied on Paladino and Castelli's compatibility effect sizes (; Studies 1a–1c, d = 0.96 on average), but also on our own past experiments with valenced stimuli using the VAAST (Rougier et al, , dz = 0.86). We estimated that to reach sufficient power we needed at least 45 participants and we ended‐up with 49 participants ( M age = 20.64, SD age = 2.29, 36 female participants) who took part in the experiment in exchange for course credits—we removed 2 participants erroneously coded with the same number from our initial pool of 51 participants.…”

“…Participants had to perform two approach/avoidance tasks. They performed the VAAST (Rougier et al, ) and the Manikin task (De Houwer et al, ) on a 23‐inch computer screen (60 Hz). We used a chin rest to set the distance to the screen at 95 cm.…”

“…The procedure was the same as in Experiment 1 except for a few changes: Participants only had to perform the VAAST (and not the Manikin task) and we used a slightly different version of the VAAST. As in some versions of the VAAST used in Rougier et al (, Experiment 4), we removed the character presented in the previous virtual environment, and the visual environment was not a corridor but a 3D street generated in Blender© (for more information see Rougier et al, ). As in Experiment 1, we asked participants to indicate whether they considered themselves to be of French, North African, or another origin.…”

“…According to some authors, the definition of attitudes has indeed evolved from a “neural state of readiness” (Allport, , p. 810) to a definition focusing more on the approach/avoidance consequences associated with an “evaluative predisposition” (Krosnick, Judd, & Wittenbrink, ). At the empirical level, several experiments were able to show a link between evaluative stimuli and behavioral tendencies: Positive stimuli would automatically trigger approach tendencies and negative stimuli avoidance tendencies (e.g., Chen & Bargh, ; De Houwer et al, ; Markman & Brendl, ; Rinck & Becker, ; Rougier et al, ; Seibt, Neumann, Nussinson, & Strack, ; Wentura, Rothermund, & Bak, ). As for other kinds of indirect measures, response times are here paramount, with the response time difference between compatible and incompatible blocks/trials supposedly indicative of an individual's personal attitudes (Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, ; Chen & Bargh, ; Neumann et al, ).…”