Traditional emotion theories assume that stimulus-driven processes are responsible for early emotional action tendencies and that goal-directed processes step in at a later stage to implement or correct these action tendencies. In contrast to this, a recent, goal-directed theory proposes that goal-directed processes operate in parallel with stimulus-driven processes at an early stage, that they enter in competition with the stimulus-driven processes, and that they defeat stimulus-driven processes in most cases. Recent studies found evidence that goal-directed processes can indeed determine early action tendencies, but they did not examine what happens when these processes enter in competition with stimulus-driven processes. The aim of the current study was to examine whether goal-directed processes can also determine early action tendencies when they are put in competition with a stimulus-driven process. To test this, we first conducted two experiments (N = 59; N = 40) to establish the operation of a stimulus-driven process and we conducted a third experiment (N = 103) in which the stimulus-driven process was pitted against a goal-directed process. Early action tendencies were measured with implicit measures (i.e., compatibility tasks). The first two experiments provided support for the operation of a stimulus-driven process in which negative valence elicits a tendency to fight. The third experiment suggested that the goal-directed process indeed operated in parallel with the stimulus-driven process, but not that the goal-directed process was able to literally defeat the stimulus-driven process.

The role of nature in promoting both affective and cognitive benefits has been extensively studied in the field of environmental psychology. Two well-established theories, Stress Recovery Theory (SRT) and Attention Restoration Theory (ART), are commonly used to explain these restorative benefits. However, despite their popularity, both theories face important challenges. To address these challenges, in the current paper, we propose an alternative goal-directed account of restorative nature experiences. In our account, we consider individuals as goal-directed agents and argue that the to-be-restored states that are central to SRT and ART – stress and negative affect (in SRT) and declines in cognitive performance (in ART) – can be interpreted as discrepancies between an individual’s goals and their current situation, instead of drained affective and/or cognitive resources. We propose that affective (see SRT) and cognitive nature benefits (see ART) both arise from a process of discrepancy reduction, where nature helps individuals to reduce discrepancies between their current situation and their goals. Nature can facilitate this discrepancy reduction process through three pathways: (a) by modifying goals, (b) by modifying interpretations of the situation, or (c) by affording actions that can fulfill thwarted goals. We compare our account to SRT and ART, highlighting similarities and differences between our proposal and the two theories, and illustrate how it can guide empirical studies and real-life interventions.

Ample research shows that spending time in natural (vs. urban) environments, or merely watching nature scenes, can seemingly replenish depleted cognitive resources and thereby improve cognitive functioning. While such findings are traditionally explained by referring to Attention Restoration Theory (ART), in the present research, we outline and test a potential alternative explanation for nature-related performance benefits. Our account centers on the notion that the aesthetically pleasing character of nature scenes simply fosters individuals' willingness to work, including working on the cognitive tasks used in attention restoration research. After outlining our theoretical proposal, we report the results of a preregistered showcase study in which we asked participants (N = 219) to watch a slideshow of fifteen photos of natural scenes/elements. The beauty of the slideshow images was manipulated by presenting either aesthetically attractive nature images (beautiful nature condition) or nature images where the aesthetic qualities had been removed through pixilation (pixelated nature condition). We subsequently tested the effect of this manipulation on participants' performance on a simple and mindless "clicking task ", consisting of freely clicking radio buttons. We also varied the number of clicking tasks participants had to perform (between-subjects); while all participants had to click buttons after the nature slideshow, a subset of them also had to do the clicking task before watching the slideshow images. Results show that participants who only had to do the clicking task once (i.e., after the slideshow) and who had watched beautiful nature, clicked more buttons, and reported to feel more motivated to click buttons compared to participants who had watched relatively unappealing pixelated nature images. This general nature-related performance enhancement could account for the general pattern of positive nature effects on cognitive tasks without requiring ART's additional assumptions of resource replenishment and resource specificity.

Dual-process models with a default-interventionist architecture explain early emotional action tendencies by a stimulus-driven process, and they allow goal-directed processes to intervene only in a later stage. An alternative dual-process model with a parallel-competitive architecture developed by Moors, Boddez, and De Houwer (Emotion Review, 9(4), 310-318, 2017), in contrast, explains early emotional action tendencies by a goal-directed process. This model proposes that stimulus-driven and goal-directed processes often operate in parallel and compete with each other, and that if they do compete, the goal-directed process often wins the competition. To examine these predictions, we set up a goal-directed process in an experimental group by rewarding participants for avoiding positive stimuli and for approaching negative stimuli and punishing them for the opposite behavior. We expected this process to compete with a potentially preexisting stimulus-driven process in which positive stimuli are associated with approach and negative stimuli with avoidance. We compared the elicited action tendencies of participants in this group with a control group in which only the stimulus-driven process could operate. Early approach and avoidance tendencies were assessed via motor evoked potentials (MEP) measured in the finger muscles previously trained to approach or to avoid stimuli after single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) delivered at 400 ms. Results confirmed that positive/negative stimuli led to stronger avoidance/approach tendencies in the experimental group but not to approach/avoidance tendencies in the control group. This suggests that goal-directed processes are indeed able to determine relatively early emotional action tendencies, but it does not show that goal-directed process can defeat stimulus-driven processes.

Title: “Support from a TMS/MEP study for a direct link between positive/negative stimuli and approach/avoidance tendencies” Chiara Fini1, Maja Fischer4,5, Lara Bardi2, Marcel Brass3, Agnes Moors4,5 1 Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, State University of Roma “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy 2 CNRS Centre national de la recherche scientifique, University of Lyon, Lyon, France 3 Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium 4 Research Group of Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, 5 Centre for Social and Cultural Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

In the present research, we propose and test the notion that nature, through its aesthetically rewarding qualities, can increase work motivation. In a preregistered study, we asked participants (N = 219) to watch a slideshow of either aesthetically rewarding (high reward condition) or relatively unrewarding nature scenes/elements (low reward condition), while also varying pre-slideshow workload (high vs. low workload). Following the slideshow, all participants had to perform a mindless routine task, i.e., clicking radio buttons. We found that under a low (vs. high) workload, participants who had watched aesthetically rewarding nature clicked more buttons, and reported to feel more motivated to click buttons compared to participants who had watched unrewarding nature. These findings testify to the motivational potential of aesthetically rewarding nature, and raise the possibility that cognitive nature benefits observed in restoration studies are not solely indicative of resource replenishment, but might also reflect increases in work motivation.

Previous behavioral studies using stimulus-response compatibility tasks have shown that people are faster to carry out instructed approach/avoidance responses to positive/negative stimuli. This result has been taken as evidence that positive/negative stimulus valence directly activates a tendency to approach/avoid, which in turn, facilitates execution of instructed approach/avoidance behavior. In these studies, however, it cannot be excluded that the results reflect a purely semantic link between stimulus valence and instructed responses. According to this alternative interpretation, positive/negative stimuli do not elicit an approach/avoidance tendency, but instead they interact with the positive/negative valence of the instructed responses, and in this way, produce the observed compatibility effect. To circumvent this possible disadvantage of compatibility tasks, we used a novel method for the measurement of early action tendencies: TMS induced MEPs. In two experiments, participants were first trained to abduct the index finger to approach and the thumb to avoid. Then, they observed a series of positive and negative stimuli. Each stimulus was followed by a TMS pulse (at 400 ms post-stimulus onset) and MEPs were measured continuously on the muscles of both fingers. These observation trials were randomly intermixed with response trials, in which neutral stimuli were presented and participants were instructed to approach/avoid the stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants received clear visual feedback on the outcome of their response in the response trials. In Experiment 2, we omitted this feedback to test whether it was necessary for the effect to occur. The results indicated higher MEPs for the approach/avoidance finger after positive/negative stimuli in Experiment 1 but not in Experiment 2. Analyses on the data aggregated over both experiments suggest that the visual feedback was necessary for stimulus valence to elicit action tendencies. Taken together, the results are in line with the results of behavioral studies with compatibility tasks, suggesting that stimulus valence directly elicits specific action tendencies already at 400 ms but they indicate that clear visual feedback is necessary for this effect to occur.

According to the temporal need-threat model, different responses toward social exclusion stem from the fact that different needs are threatened. Because evidence for this account is mixed, we tested a goal-directed account in which the chosen behavior depends not only on the threatened need but also on the behavior that has the highest expectancy of repairing that need. In two experiments, participants were excluded using the cyberball paradigm. They were then either assigned to a condition in which they could choose to send aggressive or prosocial messages to the other players or to a condition in which they could send aggressive, prosocial, or moralizing messages. We hypothesized that the expectancy to repair threatened needs would be higher for moralizing behavior than for aggressive and prosocial behavior, which would result in moralizing behavior in the second condition. Both experiments provided partial support for our hypothesis, suggesting that the reactions to social exclusion might be goal directed.

The paper sketches the historical development from emotion as a mysterious entity and the source of maladaptive behaviour, to emotion as a collection of ingredients and the source of also adaptive behaviour. We argue, however, that the underlying mechanism proposed to take care of this adaptive behaviour is not entirely up for its task. We outline an alternative view that explains so-called emotional behaviour with the same mechanism as non-emotional behaviour, but that is at the same time more likely to produce adaptive behaviour. The phenomena that were initially seen as requiring a separate emotional mechanism to influence and cause behaviour can also be explained by a goal-directed mechanism provided that more goals and other complexities inherent in the goal-directed process are taken into account.

Strengthening car drivers' intention to prevent road-traffic noise is a first step toward noise abatement through voluntary change of behavior. We analyzed predictors of this intention based on the norm activation model (i.e., personal norm, problem awareness, awareness of consequences, social norm, and value orientations). Moreover, we studied the effects of noise exposure, noise sensitivity, and noise annoyance on problem awareness. Data came from 1,002 car drivers who participated in a two-wave longitudinal survey over 4 months. Personal norm had a large prospective effect on intention, even when the previous level of intention was controlled for, and mediated the effect of all other variables on intention. Almost 60% of variance in personal norm was explained by problem awareness, social norm, and biospheric value orientation. The effects of noise sensitivity and noise exposure on problem awareness were small and mediated by noise annoyance. We propose four communication strategies for strengthening the intention to prevent road-traffic noise in car drivers.

Strassenlarm ist diejenige Verkehrslarmquelle, die am meisten Menschen belastet. Veranderungen im Handeln der Larmverursachenden stellen eine vielversprechende Moglichkeit dar, bisherige Larmbekampfungsmassnahmen zu erganzen. Die vorliegende Studie, welche vom Schweizerischen Bundesamt fur Umwelt und dem Ministerium fur Umwelt, Landwirtschaft, Ernahrung, Weinbau und Forsten Rheinland-Pfalz gefordert wurde, widmete sich der Frage, wie die Forderung eines leisen Fahrstils zur Bekampfung von Strassenlarm nutzbar gemacht werden kann. Hierzu erarbeiteten wir ein Interventionsprogramm zur Forderung eines leisen Fahrstils, welches in Zusammenarbeit mit Mitarbeitenden einer Stadtverwaltung umgesetzt und evaluiert wurde. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie deuten darauf hin, dass es sich lohnt, einen leisen Fahrstil im Rahmen der Larmbekampfung zu fordern; wahrend der mehrwochigen Durchfuhrung des Programms konnte eine Reduktion der durchschnittlichen Drehzahl, des durchschnittlichen Treibstoffverbrauchs, des gemittelten Summenpegels des Motorengerauschs wie auch der prozentualen Fahrzeit mit Motorengerauschen uber 60dB(A) beobachtet werden. Befragungen der TeilnehmerInnen gaben zudem Auskunft uber die diesen Veranderungen zu Grunde liegende Motivstruktur. Wir prasentieren in diesem Bericht sowohl eine detaillierte Darstellung des verwendeten Interventionsprogramms, des Vorgehens bei dessen Evaluation, sowie die entsprechenden Auswertungen. Wir hoffen, dass durch diese Studie zukunftige Programme zur Forderung eines leisen Fahrstils angeregt werden und von unseren Ergebnissen profitieren konnen.

Road-traffic noise impairs the well-being and health of many people. Motivating car drivers to voluntarily adopt a low-noise driving style (i.e., eco-driving) contributes to the reduction of road-traffic noise, complementary to requirements, bans, and laws. In a field study with employees of a municipality (N = 88), we investigated the effects of an intervention on car drivers’ motivation to prevent road-traffic noise, motivation to practice eco-driving, and driving behavior. The intervention consisted of a leaflet intended to enhance participants’ motivation, a practical eco-driving course, and weekly driving-performance feedbacks. We used a switching-replications design with two intervention groups. In both groups, eco-driving behavior was significantly strengthened by the intervention. The effects on the motivational variables were significant in only one of the groups (however, it should be noted that the average motivation was already relatively high before the intervention). For one of the groups, the study design allowed testing for the effects at an additional follow-up assessment (4 months after the intervention). The results showed that the intervention effect on driving behavior held across this period. The findings of the present research suggest that it is possible to improve car driver’s behavior with regard to a low-noise driving style.

Eco-driving has well-known positive effects on fuel economy and greenhouse-gas emissions. Moreover, eco-driving reduces road-traffic noise, which is a serious threat to the health and well-being of many people. We investigated the psychological predictors of the adoption of eco-driving from the perspective of road-traffic noise abatement. The data came from 890 car drivers who participated in a longitudinal survey over four months. Specifically, we tested the effects of the intention to prevent road-traffic noise, variables derived from the theory of planned behavior (social norm, perceived behavioral control, and attitude), and variables derived from the health action process approach (implementation intention, maintenance self-efficacy, and action control) on the intention to practice eco-driving and on eco-driving behavior. The intention to prevent road-traffic noise was not linked to the intention to practice eco-driving. The strongest predictors of the intention to practice eco-driving were attitude and perceived behavioral control. The strongest predictor of eco-driving behavior was action control. The link between behavioral intention and behavior was weak, indicating that drivers have difficulties putting their intention to practice eco-driving into action. Therefore, intervention efforts should directly address and support the transition from intention to behavior. This could be accomplished by providing reminders, which help to maintain behavioral intention, and by providing behavior feedback, which helps car drivers to monitor their behavior. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dieses Arbeitspapier entstand im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts „Bewusstsein und Handeln in der Lärmbekämpfung“, das vom Bundesamt für Umwelt, Abteilung Lärm und NIS unterstützt wird. Das Projekt hat zum Ziel, Erkenntnisse zu gewinnen, wie das Zustandekommen lärmrelevanten Handelns, respektive die Veränderung von gedankenlosem, lärmigem Verhalten zu leisem Handeln erklärt werden kann. Die Verantwortung für den Inhalt des Berichts liegt alleine bei den AutorInnen. r s = -.253, p< .001, N = 2760 beziehungsweise zwischen der Zufriedenheit mit der Wohnung/dem Haus und der generellen Lärmbelästigung r s = -.265, p< .001, N = 2786. Die Verkehrsintensität der Wohnstrasse korreliert mit der Strassenlärmbelästigung um r s = .522, p< .001, N = 2750 beziehungsweise mit der allgemeinen Lärmbelästigung um r s = .426, p< .001, N = 2775. untersucht. Die erklärenden Faktoren für die Strassenlärmbelastung und die Strassenlärmbelästigung sind sehr ähnlich. wird auch die Gefahr der Umweltbelastung und von Unfällen durch den Autoverkehr für Mensch und Umwelt höher eingeschätzt. Die Korrelationen betragen für die allgemeine Lärmbelästigung r s = .116 , p<. 001, N = 2752 und für die Strassenlärmbelästigung r s = 0.122, p< .001, N = 2752.