Abstract
Vandenbosch and De Houwer (this issue) reported a series of failures to induce an implicit evaluation bias by means of an approach–avoidance training paradigm. In this commentary, we point out issues raised by Vandenbosch and De Houwer that we interpret differently or that we would like to emphasise more thoroughly. In addition, we report recent results from a replication study from our lab in which we found the effects in question. Finally, we provide an overview of potential future studies needed to replicate and validate the approach–avoidance training effects.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Behavioural Science Institute of Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. We are grateful to Tommy van Steen for testing the participants and to Joyce Maas for double-checking data aggregation and analyses.
Notes
1Please see Woud et al. (2008) for the exact design of the three tasks (i.e., joystick training, affective priming task, and direct face rating).
2Further details about the data preparation and more specific results can be sent on request.