Approach and avoidance: The influence of proprioceptive and exteroceptive cues on encoding of affective information

In 3 experiments, the authors tested the assumption that perceived movement s toward a person trigger the approach system and thereby facilitate the pr ocessing of positive affective concepts, whereas perceived movements away f rom a person trigger the avoidance system and thereby facilitate the proces sing of negative affective concepts. In the Ist study, participants categor ized positive words more quickly than negative words while flexing the arm and negative words more quickly than positive words while extending the arm . The 2nd study revealed that positive words were categorized more rapidly than negative words if viewers had the impression that they were moving tow ard the computer screen, whereas negative words were categorized faster if viewers had the impression that they were moving away from the screen. Thes e findings were replicated in Experiment 3 using a lexical decision task in stead of an adjective evaluation task.