When avoidance leads to approach: How ear preference interacts with neuroticism to predict disinhibited approach

Abstract

A series of eight studies focuses on how the avoidance system represented by neuroticism can lead to disinhibited approach tendencies. Based on research which argues that hemispheric preferences predispose the left hemisphere to fast action goal formation, and contralateral pathways between ear and brain, it is proposed that (a) people with a right ear preference will engage in fast action goal formation and (b) disinhibited approach results from neurotic people who reduce anxiety by means of fast action goal formation. Study 1 provides evidence from telesales operators of a link between self-rated ear preference and objective ear preference and provides evidence that disinhibited approach is predicted by a neuroticism×ear preference interaction. Studies 2, 3, and 4 provide evidence that ear preference is related to other measures of objective aural preference and action goal formation. Studies 5, 6, 7, and 8 provide evidence that the neuroticism×ear preference interaction predicts a variety of different disinhibited approach tendencies.

Notes

¹More precisely, Sutton and Davidson (1997) state that the “left prefrontal cortex is a biological substrate of approach behaviour and ‘pre-goal attainment positive affect’ because it facilitates representation of desired goal states in the absence of explicit sensory cues, thus guiding the behaviour towards the acquisition of these goals” (p. 209).