We like it ‘cause you take it: vicarious effects of approach/avoidance behaviours on observers

ABSTRACT

We present five studies investigating the effects of approach and avoidance behaviours when individuals do not enact them but, instead, learn that others have performed them. In Experiment 1, when participants read that a fictitious character (model) had approached a previously unknown product, they ascribed to this model a liking for the object. In contrast, they ascribed to the model a disliking for the avoided product. In Experiment 2, this result emerged, with a smaller effect size, even when it was clear that the behaviours followed specific instructions from a third party. The model had been a mere executor instead of behaving autonomously. Finally, in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, we showed, with direct and indirect measures of attitudes, that reading that the model had approached vs avoided products was sufficient to create preferences in the participant for the approached one, regardless of whether it was explained that the model was a mere executor. This research highlights the largely unexplored effects of vicarious approach/avoidance behaviours. Theoretical and practical implications and possible developments of this line of research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Attitudes
• approach/avoidance
• attitude formation
• vicarious effect
• preferences Implicit Association Test

Acknowledgement

We thank Elena Tagliabue and Luca Ferrari for their precious help in stimulus preparation and data collection, Karoline Bading, Jan De Houwer, Klaus Rothermund, and Marine Rougier for valuable comments that improved the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Following the APA Dictionary of Psychology (https://dictionary.apa.org/), with indirect measures of attitudes we refer to those procedures that assess attitudes without requiring the person to provide a report of their attitudes. An example is the Implicit Association Test. With direct measures, we refer to those procedures requiring the respondent to provide a report on their attitudes, such as semantic differentials.

2 For the observed effect sizes we report Hedges’ correction (Hedges, 1981) of Cohen’s d because Cohen’s d is known to be a positively biased estimator for small samples. Hedges’ correction provides a more accurate estimate of the effect size, and Cohen’s d and Hedges’ correction are typically similar in size and can be interpreted in the same way.

3 We checked the impact of the exclusion of participants who did not remember correctly which action had to be performed on the results. The analysis confirmed that, when considering these respondents in the analysis, the pattern of results was the same as reported in the present manuscript. The only difference was for the average index of liking in the instructed condition, which was lower than the one reported in the main analyses, M = 0.96, SD = 1.38 (instead of M = 1.44, SD = 1.44). However also keeping these participants in the analyses, the tests of all hypotheses remained significant, with p < .001.

4 We checked the impact of memory for the approached product by conducting a parallel analysis in which we did not eliminate the data from participants who did not remember correctly which brand was approached and which one avoided. The patterns of results were the same as reported in the present manuscript and they brought to the same conclusions reported here. The only difference was that both the average IAT and the semantic differential indices were slightly smaller when those participants were included n the analysis.

5 We slightly modified the wording of the final questions regarding prior knowledge of the products, by specifically asking whether participants had heard of the two products before taking part in this experiment, to overcome the ambiguity of this question in Experiment 3.

6 A parallel analysis, in which we kept the data from participants who failed to remember which brand was approached and which one was discarded, showed the same pattern of results.

7 Overall, after the first reading of the vignette 201 participants answered correctly the three questions, 17 answered correctly after reading it an additional time, and one answered correctly after reading it a third time. The patterns of results did not differ if we considered only those participants who read the vignette only once in the analysis.

8 The pattern of results was stable and we would draw the same conclusions if we analyzed the data without eliminating the participants who failed the memory questions in the end of the study.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.