In everyday life, people have developed tendencies to either approach or avoid certain stimuli. Approach tendencies are elicited by positive stimuli, while avoidance tendencies are elicited by...Show moreIn everyday life, people have developed tendencies to either approach or avoid certain stimuli. Approach tendencies are elicited by positive stimuli, while avoidance tendencies are elicited by negative stimuli. This is called the approach-avoidance effect. In high-performance environments, approach and avoidance tendencies play a decisive role in succeeding or failing, or, in extreme cases, in living or dying. Moreover, in these environments, approach and avoidance tendencies are often present under self-relevant pressure. Hence, this research studied the effects of self-relevant pressure on approach and avoidance tendencies. Based on existing literature from the field of decision-making psychology and performance psychology, we hypothesized that we would replicate the approach-avoidance effect. Also, we expected that pressure would impair participants’ performance and would influence the approach-avoidance effect. Fifty-one participants completed the mobile approach-avoidance task (AAT), once with and once without pressure, and filled out a pressure questionnaire after each mobile AAT. In the mobile AAT, participants were shown pictures of happy and sad faces and were asked to push or pull them according to specific instructions. We indeed replicated the approach-avoidance effect (p < .001). However, our pressure manipulation was unsuccessful. Hence, participants did not perform worse under self-relevant pressure. Subsequently, we did not find that pressure influenced the approach-avoidance effect. Although most of the hypotheses were rejected due to the failed pressure manipulation, the present study is a springboard for future research on decision-making under self-relevant pressure. Finally, implications are discussed and directions for future research are provided.Show less
