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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Investigating Pain-Related Avoidance Behavior using a Robotic Arm-Reaching Paradigm
Published on: October 3, 2020
Approach and avoidance in fear of spiders
1Dresden University of Technology, Germany. m.rinck@psych.ru.nl <m.rinck@psych.ru.nl>
Abstract:
We examined attitudes towards spiders by employing an Approach-Avoidance Task, in which participants respond to pictures by pulling a joystick towards themselves or by pushing it away from themselves. For spider fearfuls, this stimulus-response assignment is either compatible (push spiders away) or incompatible (pull spiders closer). Specific compatibility effects were found: compared to non-anxious controls and control pictures, highly spider fearful participants responded to spider pictures more quickly by pushing than by pulling, even when picture contents was task-irrelevant. Moreover, compatibility effects predicted fear-related behavior independently of questionnaires. Potential applications, extensions, and limitations of the findings are discussed.
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