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A Listener production. Hello, and welcome to another solo episode
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of Crappy to Happy. Today, I want to share with
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you an idea that has been around in psychology for
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a really long time, and this is the idea of
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whether you are approach or avoidance motivated. Maybe you've heard
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of this before, maybe you haven't. I'll share with you
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what this means, how it applies to you, and what
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you can do to kind of shift the direction of
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your motivation if you feel like maybe that would be
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a useful thing to do. So Essentially, when we talk
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about being approach motivated or avoidance motivated, what we're talking
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about is whether you are motivated to do something, whether
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to achieve a goal or just to take an action.
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Whether you are energized to do anything day to day
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by the pursuit of something desirable or pleasurable, attractive, or beneficial.
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So that would be approach motivated. You are motivated to
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do something because you are approaching something positive, or whether
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you are fundamentally motivated to take an action or to
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achieve a goal because you are trying to avoid something
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difficult or painful or not beneficial. So this idea that
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we are motivated to pursue pleasure or to avoid pain
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has been around for thousands and thousands of years. The
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ancient Greek philosophers talked about this, so this is not new,
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and certainly even in the field of psychology all the
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way back to the eighteen hundreds, the earliest psychologists talked
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about this same idea, that humans are naturally motivated to
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either pursue something pleasurable or to avoid something painful. Now,
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the thing is that we can be fundamentally kind of
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predisposed in a particular direction one or the other. So
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it's part of your disposition, it's part of your temperament
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to either be more approach motivated or avoidance motivated, so
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basically energized or inspired to take action or to pursue
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a goal because you are excited by the idea, the
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possibility of the outcome that you're looking to achieve, or
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fundamentally seeking to avoid discomfort or negative consequence, negative repercussions.
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So you might have a sense yourself of which one
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you are. And it's not all just about personality and disposition. Obviously,
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certain situations will evoke one or the other. When I
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turned seventeen and I suddenly got my driver's license and
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wanted to buy a car. I was suddenly very motivated
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to save money because I wanted to buy a car
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and have my independence. There are plenty of examples like that.
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You know something is in front of you that you
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really want, you highly desire it, and therefore you are
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highly motivated to gain something positive or beneficial. If your
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company is downsizing and suddenly you think your job might
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be on the line, then in that situa suation, even
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if you're naturally an approach motivated person, you might suddenly
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be very motivated to avoid losing your job. So it
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can be situational, absolutely, and certainly there can be some crossover.
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You can be pursuing a goal partly because you want
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the outcome and also partly because you don't want the
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negative consequence of not achieving it. But generally speaking, we
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will be kind of wired more so in one direction
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or the other. I always use the example that if
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I've got a deadline, the thing that generally gets me
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over the line, the thing that generally propels me into action,
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is the looming deadline. I will often say that I
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do my best work under pressure, and that's a pretty
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classic example of avoidance. Motivation. I'm not necessarily motivated to
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make a start on that project or that work three
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months in advance, purely by the idea that it will
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feel good to have it done. There are definitely people
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who are like that. I'm not one of them, so
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I will normally tend to take action when it's the
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fear of missing the deadline. The fear of the negative
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consequence of not getting it in on time is what
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gets me over the line. Similarly, many of us don't
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really take action to make better choices for our health
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until potentially there's a health crisis, so you get the idea.
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The idea that there is something negative is often like
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a negative consequence. It's often the thing that propels people
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into action. So what does all this mean? What are
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the implications for this? Avoidance motivation tends to make you
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more careful, more accurate. It means you have more attention
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to detail. It's essentially that you are wired to be
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looking for errors, looking for possible mistakes, looking for possible
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negative repercussions. It inspires more kind of systematic thinking, more
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black and white thinking, deductive reasoning. What it also does
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is it actually can lead to a lower moved mood,
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it can lead to more anxiety. It actually affects your mood.
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If you tend to be more avoidance motivated, and you
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tend to be more extrinsically motivated, like you tend to
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be more looking at external consequences rather than being intrinsically motivated,
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like inspired by something that is exciting to you, there
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is a place for avoidance motivation. If you're an air
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traffic controller, then being avoidance motivated is a pretty good thing.
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You want to be really focused on what could potentially
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go wrong. But the thing about avoidance motivation is that
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the best possible outcome is relief. If you successfully avoid
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a negative consequence, then kind of the best you can
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hope for is to feel great like avoided a negative consequence.
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It's not necessarily inspiring joy and excitement and positive emotions.
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Approach motivation, on the other hand, tends to be more
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associated with positive mood, more creative thinking, more lateral problem
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solving thinking, better mood, and like I said, more intrinsically motivated,
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more compelled by something that is meaningful to you personally.
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So there's quite a lot of positive benefits to being
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approach motivated as opposed to being avoidance motivated. I want
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to share with you some really interesting studies that they
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have done about this, particularly when it comes to creative thinking.
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So if you think about if you are in a job,
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or if you're a student, for example, but if you
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are in any kind of a position that requires creativity,
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holistic thinking, problem solving skills, creating something from nothing, brainstorming,
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even just being successful in the world today, there's a
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lot to be said for being creative and innovative, and
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being creative and innovative much more likely when you are
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an approach motivated kind of person and you are compelled
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to move towards something positive or beneficial, as opposed to
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being looking for mistakes or errors or avoiding risk, or
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avoiding being found out, or avoiding making a fool of yourself,
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or avoiding losing your job, all of those things, and
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there are plenty of people day to day who are
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very focused on I don't want to make a mistake.
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I don't want to put myself out there. I don't
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want to take a risk. I don't want to lose
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my job. I don't want people to think I'm an idiot.
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If that is fundamentally what's driving you every day. There
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are some really negative consequences to that, not just for creativity,
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but like I said, for your mood. There was a
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study done once where they asked people to solve a
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simple maze puzzle, like a kid's maze. On one maze puzzle,
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they put a picture of a mouse, just a little
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cartoon drawing of a mouse, and a block of cheese
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at the other end. On the other maze puzzle, identical
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maze puzzle, they put the same image of a mouse
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or image of a mouse, and they also put an
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owl hovering nearby. So there were no words, There were
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no instructions. This was just a picture of a mouse
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either going to war cheese or potentially escaping the owl,
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not that that was explicit in the instructions. Like I said,
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this was just a visual image on the mouse puzzle.
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People all solved the mouse puzzle in the same amount
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of time. They solved it just as successfully. It was
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a fairly simple exercise, no problem. Afterwards, they asked those
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people to do a creative problem solving exercise, and the
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people who had done the maze puzzle with the mouse
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and the cheese performed much better than the people who
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had done the maze puzzle with the mouse and the owl.
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So something about just the visual representation that implied being
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avoidance motivated avoiding a danger put those people affected their brain,
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affected their cognitive capacity in some way that it limited
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their creative thinking. There have been similar studies done where
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they've asked people to do creative problem solving exercises and
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for example, like hold a series of numbers in their heads.
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So it's really kind of maxing out your cognitive capacity.
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You know what you can hold in your brain. Similarly,
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when people are presented with a mouse and the cheese
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or a mouse and an owl, the people presented with
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the mouse and the cheese image tend to do better.
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Even if you're not consciously aware of it, there is
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something that happens in your brain that seems to inspire
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more creative thinking or more limited, inflexible, rigid thinking if
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you are presented with avoidance motivation. Interestingly enough, I read
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about another study where they actually had people do arm movements.
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So they asked one group of people to perform like
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an arm flexion. So if you imagine that's like moving
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your arm towards you. It's the gesture of bringing something
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towards you, even though again that's not what they were
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told they were doing. It was simply an arm flexion exercise.
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Another group of people were asked to make an arm
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extension exercise, so that's more like pushing something away from
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you Again. They then ask those people to come up with,
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for example, as many different possible uses they could think
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of for a brick, which is just one example of
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a creative thinking exercise that we often use in psychological experiments.
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How many possible uses for this random object? The people
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who had done the arm flexion the moving towards action
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came up with way more answers than the people who
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had done the extension exercise. I personally find that so fascinating.
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There is no words, There is no instruction that says
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that there is any risk involved, there's some prize to
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be had by coming up with the most answers. There
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is nothing to indicate that this is an approach or
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an avoidance task. It is simply a physical movement that
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sends some sort of message to your brain about a
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moving towards or a pushing away affects your ability to
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come up with creative solutions to a problem. So how
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interesting is that? What are the implications for you then,
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and what can you do If you know that you
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tend to be more of an avoidance motivated person, if
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you are the person who tends to be always on
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the lookout for the risks or the problems, or you
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know that what drives you is minimizing possible negative consequences
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as opposed to being motivated to pursue something really desirable
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and attractive, well, first of all, whatever you can do
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to take that goal and to turn it into something
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positive and attractive that you are seeking to achieve, or
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something beneficial, however, you can generate some sense of excitement
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and some sense of moving towards a positive outcome as
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opposed to thinking of this goal in terms of just
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the avoidance of the negative consequence. If you are looking
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to lose weight, if you've joined the gym and you're
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looking to get fit, and your constant self talk is
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about I don't want to be fat and I don't
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want to look terrible. You've seen a picture of self
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that you don't like that you've gained weight, or you
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don't want to be unfit and puffing and puffing as
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you walk up the stairs, and you're thinking about all
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of the things that you don't want, and that is
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what is propelling you to take action towards this goal.
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You are not only less likely to achieve your goal,
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but it's having a really negative impact on your mood.
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It's having a negative impact on your ability to achieve
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your goal also, so your performance over all will be affected,
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and also your overall well being, your general happiness is
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being affected negatively. So any way that you can turn
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that goal around and make it something attractive and inspiring
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to you, it's going to make a huge difference to
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your performance and your wellbeing. If you are in a
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creative problem solving job, if you know that you are
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required to come up with solutions, and I mean most
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of us could benefit from being able to be creative
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and innovative and come up with loads of possibilities. To
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think broadly, then anything that you can do to switch
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around your focus to something that is positive and inspiring
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rather than being concerned all the time with minimizing risk
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or minimizing potential negative consequence is again going to obviously
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improve your performance and also improve your mood, improve your
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overall health and wellbeing. Practicing optimism is a really good
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way to mitigate the downsides of avoidance motivation. So when
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we talk about optimism in psychology, obviously optimism is this
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idea of assuming a successful outcome, assuming that something will
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go well. But it's not just about always being a
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glass half full type of person in psychology. Marty Seligmann,
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who's considered to be the father of positive psychology, he
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came up with this idea of learned optimism, and the
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way he defined optimism was that it is the attribution
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an attributional style or an explanatory style that you use
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to explain negative consequences. So people who tend to be
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more of a pessimistic kind of mindset, if something bad happens,
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if there's a setback, or something just doesn't go to plan,
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people with a more pessimistic mindset tend to personalize that
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it's all my fault. They tend to consider that to
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be permanent. Things are terrible, they'll always be terrible, and
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they tend to think in terms of this problem being
