The reward value of near-miss situations.
What is a "positive" outcome? Clearly, obtaining something attractive is regarded as positive, but so is avoiding something negative. The present paper compared these two types of situations in scenario-type evaluations. Participants rated positive (P), avoiding negative (AN), and negative (N) outcomes in terms of luck (Experiment 1) and overall positive/negative evaluations (Experiments 2 and 3). The results demonstrated that evaluations of P and AN outcomes were judged as equally positive, but the emotional basis for these evaluations was very different: The feeling of relief was the dominating emotion in AN situations, whereas joy was the dominating emotion in P situations. Overall, these results indicate that avoidance-induced reward value may be important as a motivating factor in cognition and action.
Department of Psychology, University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromsø, Norway. frodes@psyk.uit.no
Frode
F
Svartdal
D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011678:Punishment; D012201:Reward; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires