Detour to Arrive: Distancing in Service of Approach Goals

Abstract

Although in most situations approaching desired end-states entails decreasing distance between oneself and an object, and avoiding undesired end-states increases such distance, in some cases distancing can also be a means to approach a given goal. We highlight examples involving responses to obstacles to achievement and self-control dilemmas, showing that motivational direction is not equivalent to the motivational strategy involved when people pursue their goals.

Keywords

approach avoidance distance goals

What is painful is avoided and what is pleasant is pursued

Aristotle, De Motu Animalium

According to both classic Lewinian (Lewin, 1935) as well as current perspectives, “approach motivation is the energization of behavior by, or the direction of behavior toward, positive stimuli (objects, events, possibilities), whereas avoidance motivation is the energization of behavior by, or the direction of behavior away from, negative stimuli” (Elliott, 2006, p. 111). Given this conceptualization, it naturally follows that “approach motions result in a decrease in distance between oneself and the object, whereas avoidance motions result in an increase in that distance” (Seibt, Neumann, Nussinson, & Strack, 2008, p. 713; emphasis in original). However, whereas this assumption, which has provided a foundation for measuring approach versus avoidance motives, may appear to be a truism, there are in fact important exceptions to the rule, namely, cases in which people increase distance, either physically or psychologically, in order to approach a desired end-state.

Measuring Approach versus Avoidance Based on Distancing

Again, researchers in numerous subfields of psychology have operationalized approach behavior as reducing distance towards positives and avoidance behavior as increasing distance to negatives. For instance, in his classic study on goal gradients, Brown (1948) trained one group of hungry rats to run down a short alley to attain food. Each rat wore a harness connected to a recording device such that the strength of its pull when stopped at a specific point in the alley could be measured in grams. Using the same device, the strength of avoidance behavior was reflected in the strength with which rats ran away to escape electric shocks. Likewise, social psychologists have used the physical distance between people as a measure of approach (liking) or avoidance (disliking) tendencies. To illustrate, Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, and Jetten (1994) invited participants to take a seat in a row of eight chairs in which items from either a liked ingroup member or a disliked outgroup member were placed on the end chair. Seating position on one of the seven empty seats was then used as a behavioral measure of approach versus avoidance motives based on the observation that participants would typically sit closer to (i.e., approach) an ingroup member’s chair and farther from that of an outgroup member. Aron, Aron, and Smollan (1992) have similarly measured intimacy in close relationships by observing how closely participants situate two figures symbolizing themselves and a target person.

Correspondingly, embodiment researchers have used arm movements of pushing and pulling as even more implicit indices of approach versus avoidance tendencies. In an early study, participants were required to pull/push cards on which pleasant or unpleasant words were printed either towards or away from themselves (Solarz, 1960). Results showed that participants were faster at pulling pleasant words towards themselves than unpleasant words. In contrast, they were faster at pushing unpleasant words away from themselves than pleasant words. These results were conceptually replicated by Chen and Bargh (1999). They found the same pattern even when participants were not explicitly asked to evaluate the stimuli but were, in a between-subjects design, asked to either always push levers away from or pull levers towards positive and negative words. In a similar vein researchers manipulated rudimentary approach versus avoidance by asking participants to step back from versus towards a computer screen before solving tasks (Koch, Holland, Hengstler, & van Knippenberg, 2009). Presumably, underlying such effects is a generalized conditioning process, enabling people to automatically seek distance from undesirable and potentially dangerous events and seeking closeness to desirable and appetitive stimuli (Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993).

Similarly, researchers have primed mental representations of approach versus avoidance motives by creating illusions of motion in space. For instance, Neumann and Strack (2000) provided participants with the visual impression that they were moving either toward or away from a negative or positive word presented on the computer screen. Participants were tasked with indicating whether words presented were positive or negative. Results showed that participants were faster at categorizing negative words when they appeared to be moving away from the screen, whereas they were faster at categorizing positive words when they appeared to be moving toward the screen. In sum, there is an extensive tradition in psychology of conceptualizing approach versus avoidance tendencies in terms of increasing versus reducing distance to desired versus undesired objects or events. However, whereas this link may represent the rule in many if not most situations, it is also important to explore its exceptions in order to forge a deeper understanding of the psychological impact of approach and avoidance states.

When Distancing Means Approaching Desired End-States

Although infrequently recognized, individuals often seek a distance from a desired end-state in order to ultimately approach it. For instance, in order to find a viable approach to solving a complex or hitherto intractable problem, people may need to “step back” from it so as to see it from a broader perspective and thereby find a new means of attack. As another example, in self-control dilemmas, people may approach the overarching goal of losing weight primarily via seeking distance from temptations such as fattening food. A great deal of research has recently illuminated such ways in which individuals may focus on detouring away from a particular object or state in order to obtain or arrive at a higher-order goal object or desired state.

Obstacles

Recent studies have examined the benefits of distancing when people experience obstacles during goal pursuit. In many real-life situations, obstacles arise during goal pursuit. Such interfering forces often times come “out of the blue” and a new strategy or solution has to be developed. Marguc and colleagues argued that such problem solving in the face of obstacles can be supported by automatic processes of psychological distancing (Marguc, Förster, & van Kleef, 2011). Building upon Lewin’s field theory (1935), they argued that a person confronted with an obstacle essentially has two options: She can leave the field, that is, disengage from the goal or task at hand, or stay on track and try to overcome the obstacle. While the former case would reflect avoidance behavior, the latter is approach. In this latter case, a novel event changes the meaning of the field and thus the solution would occur by means of “restructuring of the field” and perceiving the total situation such that “the path to the goal becomes a unitary whole” (Lewin, 1935, p. 83). In other words, a global processing mode (Förster & Dannenberg, 2010) which allows for a more encompassing or global view of the situation including the goal, the obstacle and the relation between the two, may help to reconfigure elements of the problematic situation and integrate the obstacle into goal pursuit. Critically, achieving this new, broader perspective involves detaching from current assumptions and interpretations of the problem and potentially from the motivational pull of the goal itself without, however, actually disengaging (Lewin, 1935).

Because global processing might generally help to deal with obstacles, Marguc and colleagues (2011) suggested that people implicitly learn about this relation, and represent it in memory as a generalized routine, so that respective processes would be automatically elicited when obstacles occur (see Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007). In an extensive research program, using a wide variety of obstacles (such as distracting noise while participants were solving anagrams, imagining the biggest possible obstacle that might interfere with reaching the goal of studying, or navigating a computer figure through a maze with or without encountering obstacles), the authors could show that compared to participants who did not experience obstacles, participants confronted with obstacles engaged in forms of global processing, including broadening of mental categories and activation of remote exemplars. To illustrate, participants had to navigate a figure through a maze; in one condition an obstacle occurred, whereas in the other there was no obstacle. Next, in an allegedly unrelated task, they received instructions for a version of the Remote Associates Test (RAT) used by Kray, Galinsky, and Wong (2006). In each trial, participants saw three words on the screen (e.g., “envy,” “golf,” “beans”) and were asked to find a fourth word that connects them all (e.g., “green”). Such a task profits from a broad activation of remote and abstract concepts as this allows for finding an overarching commonality (Friedman & Förster, 2010). As predicted, participants who had encountered an obstacle were better at solving such problems than those who did not encounter an obstacle.

In some experiments, Marguc et al. (2011) also measured participants’ engagement in the task, to examine the hypothesis that effects should be especially pronounced for highly engaged participants. It has been proposed that individuals chronically differ in their volatility, their likelihood of disengaging from a task (Kuhl, 1994). Consistent with hypotheses, experiments assessing participants’ volatility showed that highly engaged (low volatility) participants were more likely to accept fringe exemplars into categories (e.g., accepting a “camel” into the category “vehicles”; see Rosch, 1975) when exposed to obstacles than participants not engaged in the task (high volatility) or those who were not exposed to obstacles. These studies could be replicated when volatility was primed by exposing participants to statements reflecting low (e.g., “When I’m watching an enthralling movie, I wouldn’t even think of doing something else”) or high volatility (e.g., “Even the most enthralling movie doesn’t stop me from getting up and doing something else for a while”). Also with this manipulation, performance in the RAT was best when highly engaged (i.e., low volatility) participants encountered obstacles (e.g., were stopped by blocking signs when leading a cartoon figure out of a maze). Again, these results are consistent with the notion that encountering obstacles led engaged participants, those with stronger approach motives to solve the problem, to mentally withdraw from initial problem representations and strategies and to thereby open themselves to new problem construals and tactics. Metaphorically speaking, it is as if they retreated to a higher vantage point to gain a broader perspective on a conflict roiling below.

A subsequent set of studies by Marguc, van Kleef, and Förster (2012) more directly examined the suggested automatic link between obstacles and psychological distancing (i.e., increasing the space between oneself and another person or object) as proposed by Lewin (1935). In one study, the authors asked participants to estimate the distance from their current position (Amsterdam) to a different place (the city of Rosendaal; see Liberman & Förster, 2009). If participants have indeed mentally represented a link between obstacles and distancing, then this might automatically lead, via priming, to higher estimates of the distance between themselves and other places upon encountering an obstacle. In the experiment, participants had to imagine driving to a birthday party and to then either imagine that a fallen tree blocked their way (the obstacle condition) or to simply imagine a fallen tree blocking a different street (the no-obstacle condition). They were then asked to do an “unrelated task” and to estimate the distance between the cities of Amsterdam and Roosendaal. Participants who had imagined an obstacle estimated that Roosendaal was farther away than did those who had not experienced an obstacle.

In a different study, participants had to imagine personal goals. In addition, in the obstacle condition they had to imagine the biggest obstacle that might interfere with this goal. In the no-obstacle condition participants had to imagine how to reach their goal. In an allegedly unrelated task, participants had to estimate the font size of letters presented on the computer screen. Here, distancing would imply perceiving smaller letters, mimicking the experience that letters look smaller the farther one stands away from them. Indeed, the data showed that participants estimated smaller font sizes when they had previously imagined an obstacle, compared to the no-obstacle condition. In this experiment, participants’ engagement in the task was also measured (this time by using a locomotion scale developed by Kruglanski et al., 2000). Similar to the studies reported earlier, the effects of obstacles on distance were only shown for highly engaged participants. In a third study, researchers primed volatility using the aforementioned manipulation with which the RAT was employed and showed that the distance between the current place (the lab) and a distant one (central station) was estimated as larger when highly engaged participants had previously encountered an obstacle, compared with highly engaged participants not exposed to an obstacle or with participants low in engagement.

To summarize, the studies suggest that obstacles during goal pursuit engender psychological distancing, which may be manifested in higher estimates of physical distance as well as in the broadened conceptual processing and concomitant receptivity to novel perspectives posited to accompany withdrawal from current problem representations. It is difficult to conceptualize these manifestations of psychological distancing here merely as avoidance behavior, because the effects mainly occurred for participants who were highly engaged in attaining the goal, that is, for those who did not want to leave the field, who were approach-motivated to solve the problem at hand, and who either explicitly or implicitly used mental distancing as a means to attain their overarching goal. In such cases, individuals seem to resemble viewers of a pointillist painting who need to step backward in order to perceive the scenes depicted by the artist. However, despite their outward avoidance, they are in fact approaching a desired end-state.

Self-control

Distancing in service of approach goals may also occur when people engage in self-control. People sometimes experience conflicts between temptations (e.g., eating caloric chocolate) and higher order goals (e.g., dieting). Self-control implies that people try to resolve the conflict in favor of the higher order goal. In order to achieve this, people have to avoid or distance themselves from the temptation in order to approach the desired goal. One strategy is to increase the value of the higher goal and to discount the value of the temptation (Fishbach, Zhang, & Trope, 2010; Trope & Fishbach, 2000). Such value change can sometimes happen out of a person’s awareness and can be detected using behavioral measures of physical distancing. To illustrate, Fishbach and Shah (2006) asked participants to use a joystick to pull away from or push towards the computer screen verbal stimuli representing either temptations (e.g., fatty foods) or representations of action alternatives that support long-term goal pursuit (e.g., fitness-related terms). They argued that over time, people develop strategies to devalue and avoid short-term temptations to get them “out of sight” and “far from reach,” metaphorically pushing them away. Over time, a general tendency to avoid temptations may develop. Indeed, participants who had extensively exercised self-control (i.e., dieters) were faster in pushing temptations away than participants who were not experts in dieting. For goal-related fitness words, dieters were faster in pulling towards them than people who were not on a diet. Results were replicated with successful and less successful students, showing that better self-regulators pushed temptations to studying (e.g., “travel”) away faster than higher-order goals (e.g., “degree”). Furthermore the study found that the more subjectively attractive the temptation was to a successful self-regulator, the faster were movements of pushing temptations away.

Notably, it may seem that the pushing movements detailed before may be interpreted as avoidance of undesired end-states. More specifically, hierarchical models of self-regulation may suggest that self-control dilemmas entail pursuit of an overarching goal for which resisting temptation is a subgoal. When the focus is on this subgoal, an individual engaged in self-control may avoid it. For example, a dieter may frame a delicious croissant as “poison” and avoid it by seeking distance. Such conceptualizations would take for granted that in the context of higher order goals (e.g., diet), temptations (e.g., cake) are mentally reconstructed into aversive stimuli. However, this crucial reconstruction process, changing the valence of formerly appetitive stimuli from positive to negative, is itself the focus of our analysis. Such avoidance is the result of distancing oneself from a temptation in service of higher order approach goals.

Note that this reconstructive process would be unnecessary if the individual did not wish to approach the higher order goal. Restated, activation of the higher order approach goal is the precondition for devaluing the temptation. Thus, the same act of distancing would constitute an avoidance movement if there were no higher order approach goal activated and people were simply moving away from a stimulus (unless this involved overcoming obstacles; see previous lines). However, in the absence of a self-control conflict, people typically indulge in attractive stimuli, for instance, they will devour a croissant if there is no conflicting dieting goal to dissuade them.

It follows then that interpreting distancing from temptations in self-control studies as avoidance behavior ignores the appetitive context in which the actions were carried out. Specifically, such effects have been shown for those participants who clearly valued the higher-order goal (e.g., dieters), and accordingly potentiated distancing occurred for those participants for whom the goal in the conflict situation was the focal goal and who were committed to controlling themselves (and attaining the higher-order objective). Finally, the effects were even stronger when the temptations were subjectively more attractive to the highly self-regulating participants. It is thus more appropriate to conceptualize this form of distancing as a means to approaching desired end-states.

Conclusion

Definitions of approach and avoidance behavior usually consist of two elements: an end-state (desired vs. undesired) and a motivational direction (moving towards vs. away from a reference point). We believe that in most situations these two elements overlap, such that advancing is associated with approach and distancing with avoidance. However, in some cases, especially when people are engaging in self-control or when they are confronted with obstacles, distancing can also be a means of approaching a given goal. Thus, although it is insufficiently recognized, motivational direction is not equivalent to the motivational strategy involved when people pursue their goals.

We hasten to add that this more general point has been made most prominently before by Higgins (1997), in the context of his regulatory focus theory. Higgins argued that avoidance means or strategies can support goal attainment when people approach goals related to security (a form of desired end-state). He suggested that on a strategic level people can approach desired end-states by using approach (eager) or avoidance (vigilant) means. In a nutshell, this conceptualization involves a qualitative difference between security and growth needs that eventually evolve into a promotion focus on ideals and a prevention focus on oughts.

Our previous examples, however, are not necessarily related to promotion versus prevention foci. For example, in the Marguc et al. (2012) studies, all participants approached the same goals, whereas some experienced obstacles and others did not. Whilst regulatory focus points to important differences on the level of goals (promotion vs. prevention goals as desired end-states), our examples show differences on the level of means vis-à-vis desired versus undesired end-states. Simply put, distancing is not the same as avoidance; it is rather a means to a goal that can be either approach- or avoidance-oriented. More generally, we suggest that only the context lends meaning to motivational direction. Seeking a distant chair from a person may mean that one does not like him, but it could also mean that one wishes to see him better. Likewise, physically moving away from a chocolate cake could mean that one does not like chocolate in general, or alternatively, can mean that one in fact loves it but must stay away from it in order to maintain self-control. In this latter case, the activation of a higher-order focal goal changes the meaning of distancing (recall that Fishbach and Shah [2006] found that distancing was even more pronounced for effective self-regulators when the temptation was high in hedonic value). More generally, when leaving the field, seeking a distance from the problem is avoidance; however, when using it in order to attain the main goal, it is approach.

In sum, although our examples transcend the predictions of regulatory focus, they are very much consistent with Higgins’ general insight that the “hedonic principle is not enough” (Higgins, 1997, p. 1283)—in the present case, not enough to explain why people sometimes increase their physical or mental distance from a given reference point during states of high approach motivation that in large part have traditionally been associated with distance-reduction behavior.

Finally, distancing as a means to approach may not only be found in situations of self-control or when people encounter obstacles. To illustrate, adoration toward or the desire to be held more closely in affection by a supreme being or powerful person may be shown by stepping back in awe or manifested in keeping a physical distance. Likewise, admiration towards beautiful objects of art might provoke a movement away from them. In the domain of intimate relationships people may also at times distance themselves from their partner in order to “find themselves,” thereby also improving their relationship. We hope that our article encourages readers to step back from the general notion that approach decreases, and that avoidance increases the distance so that they may gain a fuller picture of the often counterintuitive ways in which people pursue their goals.

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