title: On the automatic link between affect and tendencies to approach and avoid: Chen and Bargh (1999) revisited.
abstract: Within the literature on emotion and behavioral action, studies on approach-avoidance take up a prominent place. Several experimental paradigms feature successful conceptual replications but many original studies have not yet been replicated directly. We present such a direct replication attempt of two seminal experiments originally conducted by Chen and Bargh (1999). In their first experiment, participants affectively evaluated attitude objects by pulling or pushing a lever. Participants who had to pull the lever with positively valenced attitude objects and push the lever with negatively valenced attitude objects (i.e., congruent instruction) did so faster than participants who had to follow the reverse (i.e., incongruent) instruction. In Chen and Bargh's second experiment, the explicit evaluative instructions were absent and participants merely responded to the attitude objects by either always pushing or always pulling the lever. Similar results were obtained as in Experiment 1. Based on these findings, Chen and Bargh concluded that (1) attitude objects are evaluated automatically; and (2) attitude objects automatically trigger a behavioral tendency to approach or avoid. We attempted to replicate both experiments and failed to find the effects reported by Chen and Bargh as indicated by our pre-registered Bayesian data analyses; nevertheless, the evidence in favor of the null hypotheses was only anecdotal, and definitive conclusions await further study.
authors.affiliation: Social Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rotteveel
authors.affiliation: Social Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gierholz
authors.affiliation: Social Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Gijs
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.affiliation: Social Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Cherelle
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: van Aalst
authors.affiliation: Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Cognitive Neuroscience Group Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Yair
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Pinto
authors.affiliation: Psychological Methods Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Dora
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Matzke
authors.affiliation: Psychological Methods Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Steingroever
authors.affiliation: Psychological Methods Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Josine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Verhagen
authors.affiliation: Social Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Titia F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Beek
authors.affiliation: Psychological Methods Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ravi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Selker
authors.affiliation: Psychological Methods Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sasiadek
authors.affiliation: Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Psychological Methods Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Eric-Jan
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Wagenmakers
keywords: affect; approach; avoidance; emotion; replication