Motivational direction diverges from valence for sadness, anger, and amusement: A role for appraisals?

Abstract

Recent work has cast doubt on whether the strength of motivation (strength of avoidance or approach tendencies) experienced while viewing emotion-eliciting pictures is dissociable from felt valence (negative versus positive). The present study extended this work by testing specific discrete emotions (amusement, anger, awe, desire, sadness). Previous work has proposed separate motivational direction (avoid versus approach) from valence. In Study 1, participants (N = 60) rated the motivational direction or valence they experienced while viewing 100 pictures that each evoked one of the five discrete emotions. We found significant differences between average motivational direction and valence ratings for sadness, anger, and amusement. Critically, underlying these averages, we found that while valence responses were highly consistent, there was large variability in motivational direction, with some people indicating they wanted to approach and others indicating they wanted to avoid while viewing the same picture. Individual differences in motivational direction were largest for sadness, so in Study 2 (N = 100) we tested whether they were predicted by appraisals of the situation (e.g., ratings of how welcome or useful people believed their help would be). The three appraisals tested accounted for 64% of the variance in motivational direction, after which valence made a very small unique contribution. These findings highlight that motivational direction and valence can diverge. Given the variability in individuals' motivational direction responses, future studies designed to assess the effects of motivational direction on cognitive processes need to tailor stimuli for each participant to ensure they activate the intended motivational direction.

Four best-practice recommendations for improving the conceptualization and operationalization of motivational intensity: Reply to Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones.

“…We also agree that self-reports represent one part of the picture of affective experiences, an issue we already discuss in (Campbell et al, 2023). However, caution should also apply to the use of physiological measures, as it is essential that any purported physiological measures are validated as selectively reflecting MI.…”

“…That is, in multiple studies, differences in cognitive processes measured in two conditions have been attributed to motivational intensity which was not explicitly measured, while the conditions do demonstrably differ in the valence participants experienced. We explain exactly what we found in Campbell et al ( 2021) and our subsequent follow-up work (Campbell et al, 2023), and what aspects of our interpretation converge versus diverge with the views offered in Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones' commentary. We also identify four important recommendations for best-practice research going forward.…”

“…Whereas some previous work had considered individual differences within motivational directions, no previous work had considered whether the same stimulus could result in qualitatively different motivational directions (some motivated to avoid while others to approach). Our work showed exactly this (Campbell et al, 2023). This divergence was in stark contrast to high consistency for valence ratings, which were almost invariably positive or negative across all participants for each stimulus.…”

“…We therefore agree that stimuli and participants need to be carefully selected. Our new data (Campbell et al, 2023) bolsters this argument by showing that motivational direction diverges across individuals according to their appraisals of a situation. For example, some individuals reported approach motivation for pictures of sad scenarios while others reported avoidance motivation to the same stimuli.…”

“…Prior to Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones’ commentary, we conducted additional work to identify potential instances where MI and valence might diverge. This work is now published, and in it, we found that there are some key instances (i.e., discrete emotional categories) in which they diverge (Campbell et al, 2023). We agree with Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones that these divergences between MI and valence offer the opportunity to test which (if either) is the driver of cognitive and physiological processes.…”