The Development of a New Implicit Measure: First Application of the Swipe Approach-Avoidance Procedure in Consumer Research

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW IMPLICIT MEASURE: FIRST APPLICATION OF THE SWIPE APPROACH-AVOIDANCE PROCEDURE IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

Word count: 29.626

Sarie Maes Student number : 01201125

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Hendrik Slabbinck

Master’s Dissertation submitted to obtain the degree of:

Master of Science in Business Engineering

Academic year: 2017 - 2018

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW IMPLICIT MEASURE: FIRST APPLICATION OF THE SWIPE APPROACH-AVOIDANCE PROCEDURE IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

Word count: 29.626

Sarie Maes Student number : 01201125

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Hendrik Slabbinck

Master’s Dissertation submitted to obtain the degree of:

Master of Science in Business Engineering

Academic year: 2017 - 2018

PERMISSION

I declare that the content of this Master’s Dissertation may be consulted and/or reproduced, provided that the source is referenced.

Name student: Sarie Maes

Signature:

Preface

This master dissertation is the final piece of work in order to complete the degree of Master of Science in Business Engineering with the option Operations Management. It took me one year and a half of hard work to complete this master dissertation and to reach this point in time. Looking back at these years of college, I feel joy for both the knowledge and life experience I obtained while studying in Ghent, but also for the multiple friends that came along during those years. Please do not misunderstand me, because there were also times of suffering while studying or participating in classes. But in the end, taken these moments all together, I look back with a smile on my face.

In order to get to this finish line, I needed the help and support of some people, who I want to thank greatly by using this piece of paper. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. dr. Hendrik Slabbinck, who gave me the opportunity to write this master dissertation that is not in line with my main study field, namely Operations Management. Furthermore, I would like to thank him for the development of the software that was needed in order to perform the SwAAP. Moreover, I would like to thank my parents for the never-ending support and there patience with me. If it weren’t for them, I would not have been where I am today. Thirdly, I show much gratitude towards my sister, Jolien Maes, for reading this master dissertation and her accompanying advice. Moreover, I want to thank Ellen De Backer, Laura Van Bogaert and Stephanie De Poorter for being in the same situation as me. This way, I always had someone to share my frustrations and complains with, but also the ability to count down together. Last but not least, I want to thank all my friends for the necessary distraction with a special role for the members of my volleyball team. They were always there for me in my leisure time to out my frustrations/anger on the ball, and thus providing the appropriate relaxation when most needed.

Contents

List of abbreviations ...... VII List of figures ...... VIII List of tables ...... IX Nederlandstalige samenvatting ...... XI Abstract ...... XIII

1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Literature review ...... 2 2.1. Classification of consumer research ...... 2 2.2. Measurement of consumer behaviour ...... 3 2.3. Overview of implicit measures ...... 6 2.3.1. Association measures ...... 6 2.3.1.1. Implicit Association Test (IAT)...... 6 2.3.1.2. The Single-Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT) ...... 8 2.3.1.3. The Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT) ...... 9 2.3.1.4. The Go/No-Go Association Test (GNAT) ...... 10 2.3.1.5. The Sorting Paired Features task (SPF) ...... 10 2.3.1.6. The Implicit Association Procedure (IAP) ...... 12 2.3.2. Cognitive processing measures ...... 12 2.3.2.1. The implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) ...... 12 2.3.2.2. The Initial Preference Task (IPT) ...... 13 2.3.2.3. The Stereotypic Explanatory Bias (SEB) ...... 14 2.3.3. Semantic processing measures ...... 15 2.3.3.1. Affective Simon Task (AST) ...... 15 2.3.3.2. Extrinsic affective Simon task (EAST) ...... 16 2.3.3.3. The Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) ...... 17 2.3.4. Approach and avoidance measures ...... 17 2.3.4.1. Approach Avoidance Task (AAT)...... 19 2.3.4.2. (Feedback) Joystick AAT ...... 20 2.3.4.3. Manikin task ...... 21 2.3.4.4. The Swipe Approach-Avoidance Procedure (SwAAP) ...... 21 2.4. Embodied cognition theory ...... 26 2.4.1. Distance of the stimuli ...... 26 2.4.2. The Construal Level Theory (CLT) ...... 26 3. Methodology ...... 29 3.1. Research question...... 29 3.2. Hypotheses ...... 31

III

3.3. Design ...... 35 3.3.1. General description of the design ...... 35 3.3.1.1. Participants ...... 35 3.3.1.2. Materials and apparatus ...... 35 3.3.1.3. General procedure ...... 35 3.3.2. Phase 1: Experimental manipulation ...... 36 3.3.2.1. Pretest ...... 37 3.3.2.2. Procedure ...... 37 3.3.3. Phase 2: Implicit measurement of the attitudes (SwAAP) ...... 39 3.3.3.1. Stimuli ...... 39 3.3.3.2. Design ...... 39 3.3.3.3. Procedure ...... 40 3.3.4. Phase 3: Explicit measurement of the attitudes (PANAS scales) ...... 41 3.3.5. Phase 4: Behaviour measurements ...... 41 3.3.5.1. Construal level and healthy choices ...... 41 3.3.5.2. Approach-avoidance and healthy choices ...... 42 3.3.6. Phase 5: Control questions ...... 42 4. Results ...... 43 4.1. Data ...... 43 4.2. Data clearing ...... 43 4.2.1. Normality ...... 43 4.2.2. Outliers...... 44

4.3. Results concerning H1 and H2 ...... 45 4.3.1. General results concerning compatibility effect ...... 45 4.3.2. Difference between female and male ...... 48 4.3.3. Difference between right- and left-handed people ...... 50 4.4. Results concerning H3 and H4 ...... 53 4.4.1. Mindset induction ...... 53 4.4.2. Influence of the mindset induction and the tablet position on the performance of the SwAAP ...... 54 4.5. Results concerning H6 ...... 56 4.5.1. Influence of construal level on product related aspects/healthy choices ...... 56 4.5.1.1. Descriptive statistics ...... 56 4.5.1.2. Influence construal level on healthy choices ...... 57 4.5.2. Influence approach/ avoidance motivation on health choices...... 59 4.5.3. Relationship between approach avoidance motivation, construal level theory and healthy choices ...... 60 5. Conclusion ...... 64 6. Discussion and future research ...... 65 6.1. The reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) ...... 66

6.1.1. Behavioural inhibition system and behavioural approach (activation) system (BIS/BAS) ...... 67 6.1.2. Fight/ Flight/ Freeze System ...... 70

References ...... XIV Appendices ...... XXI 1. Appendix A: Methodology ...... XXI 1.1. Stimuli from International Affective Picture System (IAPS) ...... XXI 1.2. Behaviour Identification Form (BIF) ...... XXII 1.3. Positive And Negative Affect Schedule scales (PANAS)...... XXIII 1.4. Link CLT and healthy choices ...... XXIV 1.5. Link AA and healthy choices ...... XXVI 1.6. The BIS/BAS scales ...... XXVII 2. Appendix B: SPSS results ...... XXVIII 2.1. Data clarification ...... XXVIII 2.2. Data clearing ...... XXXI 2.3. SPSS output concerning H1 and H2 ...... XXXI 2.3.1. General ...... XXXI 2.3.2. Differences between female and male ...... XXXIV 2.3.3. Differences between left and righthanded participants ...... XXXVI 2.3.4. Differences between other groups...... XXXVIII 2.4. SPSS output concerning H3 and H4 ...... XXXIX 2.4.1. Differences in mindset induction ...... XXXIX 2.4.2. Difference on SwAAP performance between mindset induction and tablet position ...... XL 2.5. SPSS output concerning H6 ...... XLII 2.5.1. Difference between construal level and product related aspects ...... XLII 2.5.2. Difference between construal level and healthy choices ...... XLII 2.5.3. Difference between approach/ avoidance motivation and healthy choices...... XLV 2.5.4. Relationship between approach avoidance motivation, CLT and healthy choices ...... XLVI 2.6. SPSS output concern ing discussion (influence BIS/BAS) ...... LII

List of abbreviations

AA Approach avoidance AAP Approach avoidance procedure AAT Approach avoidance task ACC Anterior cingulate cortex AMP Affect misattribution procedure AST Affective Simon task BAS Behavioural activation (approach) system BEAMs Bivariate evaluation and ambivalence measures BIAT The brief implicit association test BIS Behavioural inhibition system CLT Construal level theory EAST Extrinsic affective simon test EEG Electroencephalography FCQ Food choice questionnaire FFS Fight flight system FFFS Fight flight freeze system GNAT Go- no go association test IAP Implicit association procedure IAPS International affective picture system IAT Implicit association test IPT Initial preference task IRAP Implicit relational assessment procedure NA Negative affect NLE Name letter effect PA Positive affect PANAS Positive affect and negative affect scales PEBS Planning eating behaviour scales PESV Partial eta square value RA Research assistant RST Reinforcement sensitivity theory SAM Self-assessment manakin SEB Stereotypic explanatory bias SPF Sorting paired feature task SRC Stimulus response compatibility ST-IAT The single target implicit association test SwAAP Swipe approach avoidance procedure

VII

List of figures

Figure 1 Customer behaviour …………………………………………………………...... 2 Figure 2 Overview of available research methods …….………………………………...... 4 Figure 3 Overview different terms of measurements …………………………………...... 5 Figure 4 Example of the IAT ………………………………………………………...... 7 Figure 5 Example of the BIAT …………………………………………………………...... 9 Figure 6 Illustration of a SPF trial ……………………………………………..……………… 11 Figure 7 (In)compatible task ……………………………………………………………...... 22 Figure 8 Summary of the implicit measurements ……………………………..………………. 23 Figure 9 Experimental manipulation (abstract and concrete mindset induction)……………… 36 Figure 10 Boxplot positphotos …………………………………………………………………. 44 Figure 11 Boxplot negatphotos …………………………………………………………………. 44 Figure 12 Boxplot posvsneg ……………………………………………………………………. 44 Figure 13 Plot positphotos (gender) ……………………………………………………………. 48 Figure 14 Plot negatphotos (gender) …………………………………………………………… 48 Figure 15 Plot of positphotos (left or right handed) ……………………………………………. 51 Figure 16 Plot of negatphotos (left or righthanded) ……………………………………………. 51 Figure 17 Boxplot posvsneg…………………………………………………………………….. 54

VIII

List of tables

Table 1 Information of the participants……………………………………………………….. 35 Table 2 SPSS values concerning normality hypothesis………………………………………. 44 Table 3 SPSS values concerning normality hypothesis (without outliers)…………………… 44 Table 4 Overview SPSS values (one sample t-test)…………………………………………... 46 Table 5 Overview SPSS values (paired sample t-test)………………………………………... 46 Table 6 Overview descriptive statistics……………………………………………………….. 49 Table 7 Overview SPSS values (MANOVA)………………………………………………… 49 Table 8 Overview descriptive statistics……………………………………………………….. 51 Table 9 Overview SPSS values (MANOVA)………………………………………………… 52 Table 10 Overview SPSS values (Mann Whitney U test)……………………………………… 54 Table 11 Overview descriptive statistics (posvsneg)…………………………………………... 55 Table 12 Overview SPSS values (two way ANOVA)…………………………………………. 56 Table 13 Overview descriptive statistics (product related aspects)……………………………. 57 Table 14 Overview descriptive statistics (construal level and healthiness)……………………. 58 Table 15 Overview SPSS values (one way ANOVA)…………………………………………. 58 Table 16 Overview SPSS values (two way ANOVA)…………………………………………. 59 Table 17 Overview descriptive statistics (SOMCLT)………………………………………….. 61 Table 18 Overview SPSS values (test between subjects effect: SOMCLT)...…………………. 61 Table 19 Overview descriptive statistics(SOMApproach)……………………………………... 62 Table 20 Overview SPSS values (test between subjects effect: SOMAppraoch)...……………. 62 Table 21 Overview descriptive statistics(SOMAvoidance)……………………………………. 62 Table 22 Overview SPSS values (test between subjects effect: SOMAvoidance).……………. 62

Nederlandstalige samenvatting

Deze masterproef tracht de swipe approach avoidance procedure (SwAAP) verder te ontwikkelen. Deze wordt beschouwd als een nieuwe methode binnen de impliciete metingen. Een eerste doel van deze thesis is om het compatibiliteitseffect van de SwAAP, gevonden door Kraus (2014) te repliceren. Het tweede doel is om te onderzoeken of een verschil in mindset-inductie samen met een positief of negatief affect (gecreëerd door de SwAAP) zou leiden tot verschillende antwoorden met betrekking tot de keuze van gezond voedsel. Dit onderzoek situeert zich binnen het consumentenonderzoek. Het experiment uitgevoerd in het onderzoekslaboratorium van de universiteit van Gent bestond uit vier verschillende fasen. In een eerste fase werd een experimentele manipulatie zodanig uitgevoerd dat de deelnemer of een abstracte of een concrete mindset-inductie verkreeg. Nadien, in de tweede fase, probeerde de impliciete methode (de SwAAP) de attitudes van de deelnemer te meten. In de derde fase werden diezelfde attitudes gemeten, maar op een expliciete manier. De laatste fase bestond uit gedragsmetingen. De resultaten tonen aan dat de SwAAP niet in staat is om de toenaderings- en vermijdingstendensen te meten. De procedure van de SwAAP kan dus niet worden gerepliceerd. Hierdoor zijn er dus ook geen verschillende gedragsmetingen verkregen binnen de verschillende toenaderings- en vermijdingsgroepen. De experimentele manipulatie (d.w.z. abstracte vs. concrete mindset-inductie) was wel succesvol en als resultaat daarvan werden binnen deze categorie wel verschillende gedragsmetingen verkregen. Aangezien het doel was om de twee (d.w.z. zowel de mindset-inductie als de AA) te integreren in de SwAAP, zijn er aanpassingen en theorieën die kunnen leiden tot toekomstig succes opgenomen in de discussie. Eerdere studies waren vooral gefocust op de ontwikkeling en verbetering van deze nieuwe impliciete maatregel. Voor zover ons bekend is, is de literatuur betreffende de SwAAP eerder beperkt en daarom is deze studie één van de eerste in de literatuur die de SwAAP in het consumentenonderzoek situeert.

XII

Abstract

This master dissertation seeks to further develop the swipe approach avoidance procedure (SwAAP), which is considered to be a new measurement within the category of implicit measures. The goal of this thesis is twofold. A first aim was to confirm the compatibility effect of the SwAAP found by Kraus (2014). Besides, a second goal was to see whether or not a difference in mindset induction together with a positive or negative affect (created by the SwAAP) would lead to different responses concerning the health of food, which can be situated within the consumer research. An experiment that consisted of four different phases was conducted in the research lab at the university of Ghent in order to investigate the two research goals. In the first phase, an experimental manipulation was carried out in such a way that the participant either obtained an abstract or a concrete mindset induction. Afterwards, in the second phase, the implicit measure SwAAP tried to measure the different attitudes of the participant. In the third phase, the same attitudes were measured, but in an explicit way. The last phase consisted of behaviour measurements. The results show that the SwAAP is not able to measure the approach avoidance tendencies (i.e. first goal of the research) and therefore no different behaviour measurements were obtained (i.e. second goal of the research). We were thus not able to replicate the SwAAP developed by Kraus (2014). The experimental manipulation (i.e. abstract vs. concrete mindset induction) worked and as a result different behaviour measurements were obtained. Unfortunately, as the goal was to integrate the two (i.e. mindset induction and AA) into the SwAAP, future adaptations and theories to consider which could lead to future success, are included in the discussion. To the best of our knowledge, the literature about the SwAAP is rather scare and focusses on the development and improvement of this new implicit measure. Therefore this study is one of the first to integrate the SwAAP in the consumer research.

XIII

1. Introduction Since the statement of Thurstone in 1928 that implied that the attitudes of people could be measured, the social psychology is bursting at the seams and the research in this field has developed a focus on the assessment of attitudes. An attitude is often described as:“ a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour” (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p1). In order to assess the attitudes of people, two approaches can be distinguished in literature, namely explicit and implicit measures. The explicit measures, also known as the rather traditional models, assume that three components shape the attitude towards an object or stimuli. These three components are a cognitive, affective and a behavioural component. Therefore when assessing someone’s attitude in an explicit manner, you are assumed to know the person’s beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards the object or presented stimulus (Karpinski & Hilton, 2001). However some limitations are in order. The use of these explicit measures assume an introspective access and is sensitive towards social desirability (De Houwer, 2015). The more recent developed models of attitudes, implicit measures, state that the attitudes can exist outside the conscious control and awareness (Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, 1995). These models try to overcome the limitations of the explicit measures and exist to assess people’s automatic reactions to attitude objects.

Both explicit and implicit methods have been developed and studied in order to assess the different attitudes of customers. However, due to the changing technology, a lot of customers now possess a device that contains a touchscreen (i.e. tablet or smartphone). As original both the explicit and implicit methods were taken on the computer in combination with an external device (e.g. keyboard, joystick, etc.), this upcoming technology of touchscreens opens up new opportunities. No external devices are needed and the finger can be used instead of the old joystick feature. Unfortunately, the procedures that make use of the touchscreen are rather scarce and often not fully developed.

In order to address this problem, this master dissertation will try to further develop the swipe approach avoidance procedure (SwAAP), which is considered to be a new measurement within the category of implicit measures. The goal of this thesis is twofold. A first aim is to confirm the compatibility effect of the SwAAP found by Kraus (2014). Besides, another goal is to investigate whether or not a difference in mindset induction together with a positive or negative affect (created by the SwAAP) would lead to different responses concerning the health of food. This can be seen as the investigation of the prediction validity of the SwAAP.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, an overview of the literature concerning the different implicit measures and the embodied cognition theory is given. Next, the methodology design is described containing four different phases. Afterwards, an elaboration of the results is given. Finally, the results are discussed and adaptations concerning future research is given.

2. Literature review 2.1. Classification of consumer research A lot of companies are interested in the way humans make decisions. Companies like Unilever, Procter and Gamble, T-Mobile and multiple others see great value in the possibility to influence the consumer behaviour in a way to positively influence the return on investment. Before being able to influence the consumer, consumer research must be executed. Consumer research is described in the literature as the research field where information is gathered concerning the needs, motivations and preferences of consumers. Therefore a relation to a product or service can be observed. In order to gather this kind of knowledge, various manners can be used such as (direct) observation, telephone surveys, face to face interviews, mail surveys etc… (Perner, 2017). The behaviour of the consumer is part of consumer research. This kind of research consists of a psychological process in different phases. It involves identifying a specific need of a customer and goes all the way to the implementation of an action plan to achieve this need.

Figure 11 gives a clear overview of the different sources of influence on and of customer behaviour. This figure is a composition of already existing figures from the literature (Khan, 2012; Perner, 2017).

Figure 1: Customer behaviour

Assume an environment where the customer cannot be influenced at all. This way the orange shapes (e.g. advertising, sale promotion, social class, culture, …) in the figure can be ignored. The customer can make their decision in five simple steps. The first step in the decision making process is the problem recognition. In this phase, you identify that something is not working as it should or that something is missing. The second step is the gathering of information about this need and the different alternative solutions for it. The third step consist of the comparison between the different alternatives. The possible purchase of the good and/or service is considered to be the fourth step. The final, fifth step concerns the evaluation of the purchase (Perner, 2017).

1 (Khan, 2012; Perner, 2017)

Due to the influence on the customer, indicated by the orange shapes, a multiplication of the needs can be observed (e.g. goods/ services will be faster replaced, needs that are pushed forward in time, etc.). Therefore the different steps can be proceeded more often or take longer due to the fast changing needs. The possibility to influence for example the consumer buying behaviour can be categorized in a formal- and informal source (Khan, 2012). In case of a formal source the emphasis is on the possibility of planning and payment. Advertisement, promotion and other sources of publicity can be bought in exchange for money and have a possibility to have a positive effect on the consumers buying behaviour. The dominant factor here is advertising. In figure 1 the formal sources are represented by the orange circles. In case of an informal source no planned and/or payed action is influencing the customer. It merely concerns the unplanned form of advertising like word-of-mouth advertising. The factors representing the informal sources are represented by an orange rectangle form in figure 1 (Perner, 2017).

2.2. Measurement of consumer behaviour The assessment of these influences is an important part of the customer behaviour. Two main assessment methods are currently known, where using a questionnaire with a Likert scale is probably the most famous one (e.g. on a scale from one to ten, how much did you liked this product?). In this first kind of assessment, called the explicit measurement, the participant is always aware of the purpose of the assessment. His/her response therefore reflects the content (Petty, Fazio, & Briñol, 2008). The disadvantage of these kind of measurements is that a misunderstanding or misbehaviour (e.g. social pressure or desirability) can change the outcome and as a result the research can become distorted or even irrelevant. But what if researchers want to investigate stable, implicit or automatically activated attitudes and cognitions of consumers? Stable attitudes are attitudes that are not sensitive to external influences and will always remain the same over time. This is because the strength of the association between an attitude object and its evaluation is considered to be strong (Petty & Krosnick, 2014). Implicit attitudes are evaluations that arise without your conscious awareness towards the stimuli. The example that Greenwald and Banaji (1995) used to clarify this concept concerns a man named Johnny who thinks that Sue is intelligent because he finds her attractive. To a certain extent, Johnny is unaware that his conscious belief about her attractiveness has an influence on the judgement concerning Sue’s intelligence. In this case, the attitude toward her attractiveness is labelled to be implicit. Automatically activated attitudes appear when the person is confronted with stimuli that evokes such an attitude (e.g. if a person feels strongly about non-smoking in a bar with children, the attitude will automatically be evoked when seeing a man smoke). In case a misunderstanding or misbehaviour is expected, the second kind of measurement called implicit measures, is more appropriate. Researchers discovered that the implicit measurements have a greater predictive validity over the explicit measurement (Barnes-Holmes, Murtagh, Barnes-Holmes, &

Stewart, 2010). Figure 2 gives a clear overview of the different methods available that could be used for assessing a wide range of processes and behaviours. As this master dissertation has the aim to further develop a new implicit measure, only this category will further be elaborated.

Figure 2: Overview of available research methods

The term measurement is classified in the research into two different categories explained by De Houwer (2006). Figure 3 gives a clear overview of the different categories. The first one, the qualification implicit/explicit, uses the term measure to refer to the outcome of a measurement procedure (e.g. the weight of a person standing on the balance or the IQ score after taking the IQ test). The implicit measurements, in contrast to the traditional explicit measures, rely on the performance of the participants in experimental paradigm. The measurement does not require the introspective access to the mental representations. This means that the participants conscious thoughts and feelings are being assessed without his or her knowledge (Gawronski, Lebel, & Peters, 2015). This qualification is shown in the upper part of figure 3. The second category, also known as direct/indirect distinction (indicated in the lower part of figure 3), emphasizes the objective measurement procedure (e.g. putting someone on a weighing scale or the test for measuring the IQ of a person). As soon as someone refers to the procedure of the measurement itself, the term implicit measures is unused and the term indirect measurement is more appropriate (De Houwer, 2005, 2006). When participants are asked to perform an indirect measurement (right bottom of figure 3), the participants attitudes or cognitions are assessed indirectly and thus examined by linking other behaviour and its effect upon these other behaviours. In contrast, if the participant is directly assessed (left bottom of figure 3), or aware of what kind of attitudes are being questioned, the term direct measures is in order. Direct measures can therefore easily be determined by looking at the properties of the objective.

Figure 3: Overview different terms of measurement

Implicit measures (top right of figure 3) are conducted to register attitudes and cognitions that are available to consciousness and maybe even attitudes/cognitions that participants have learned unconsciously. When using the term implicit measures the author thus refers to an index of an attitude or cognition (De Houwer, 2005, 2006). Three important assumptions must be made in order to refer to certain functional properties of measurement outcomes, for which the term implicit measure is used (De Houwer, 2005; Gawronski et al., 2015). The first one is that the participants are not aware that an attitude or cognition is measured. The second assumption postulates that participants cannot have conscious access to the attitude or cognition. The implicit mental representation is thus not accessible to introspection or self-report. The third assumption describes that the participant cannot steer the measurement outcome. A consequence is that the social desirability cannot play a role in the answers given by a participant.

Although implicit measures have shown their value, some vigilance is in order. Construct validity is defined in the literature as the degree to which a test measures what it claims to be measuring. Low correlations between self-reports and indirectly assessed representations found by Gawronski, LeBel and Peters (2007) are inconclusive. Meaning that there is some uncertainty about the potential unconsciousness of indirectly assessed representations. It therefore weakens the assumption that participants have no introspective access. In addition, Steffens (2004) provided some evidence that participants are able to fake a certain attitude by slowing down their reaction times. Other findings in research, summarized by Gawronski, LeBel and Peters (2007), indicate that participants can attempt to control the responses of both implicit and explicit measures. The reason why researchers keep on using the implicit measures, is that it can be very informative when investigating the processes that underlie human behaviour.

2.3. Overview of implicit measures Due to the extensive growth of the available implicit measures during the past decades, only the most famous and remarkable implicit measures will be explained. Subgroups of measurements are formed based upon the same underlying principle for clarification purposes. For each implicit measurement a brief general introduction and its possible deviation of other well-known measurements together with its (dis)advantages will be given. Afterwards, a new discovered implicit measurement will be elaborated extensively, together with the aim of present research. Figure 2 can be very useful to give a clear overview of the implicit measures with its subgroups. This overview follows the figure, and will first describe the association measures, followed by the cognitive and semantic measures to end with the approach avoidance measurements. Of these different subgroups, the last one is the most important one as the approach avoidance principle is the basis of our new implicit measurement.

At the end of this section, an overview of the different measurements with its advantages and disadvantages is given (figure 8).

2.3.1. Association measures

Within this category the participants are exposed to attitude objects (e.g. pictures of black and white people) and evaluative attributes (e.g. good or bad). By measuring the underlying automatic evaluation or automatic associations, the assessment of the implicit attitudes takes place (e.g. the white people pictures will be perceived as good whereas the black people are perceived as bad) (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Karpinski & Hilton, 2001). Although these measurements often relate to the explicit measurements, they are more deliberative and therefore often distinct from the explicitly endorsed attitudes (Uhlmann, Andrew Poehlman, & Nosek, 2012).

2.3.1.1. Implicit Association Test (IAT) At this moment of time, the most frequently used implicit measure is the Implicit Association Test, better known as IAT. This procedure was discovered by Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz in 1998 and is used for diagnosing significant associative structures. Here implicit attitudes are measured by investigating the associations between objects and attributes and their underlying automatic evaluation (Greenwald et al., 1998). One notorious example within the literature is the measurement of the preferences for white over black people. The procedure consists of five different stages (Gawronski & De Houwer, 2014). The first two stages within the IAT have the intention to get the participants become familiar with the categorization tasks. If the IAT is applied to this well-known example from the literature, the first stage aims to categorize the pictures of black and white people as accurate as possible (e.g. indicate African Americans by the e key and the European Americans by the i key). This stage is called the initial-target concept discrimination. In the second stage, positive and negative words have to be categorized within the categories bad versus good, using respectively the e and i key. Consequently

these two stages are seen as learning stages as the participants are imposed to categorize target words that are relevant to the attitude objects in the first stage (Karpinski & Hilton, 2001). In the next phase, the categorization tasks are combined. Here the ultimate goal is to categorize the different objects presented according to the key assignments learned within the two first stages. The example in the figure shows an African American face (i.e. black face) and should be placed in the Bad -African American category. This means that the participants are given both pictures as well as words in an alternating order to categorize according to the same assignments given in the first two stages. The fourth phase is again a learning phase and is a switch between the categories and the response keys. As you can see on the picture, the African American is now linked with the i key, whereas the European American is linked with the e key. The last phase, is once again a combination of the category tasks. The overall IAT score is the difference between the response times in the two combined stages. Considering this well-known experiment, the outcome indicated a relative preference for white people over black people. Thus, people are faster to respond when positive words are linked with liked items than in any other case. This outcome can also be observed in other experiments. Figure 4 gives a clear overview of the different steps2.

Figure 4: Example of the IAT1 The biggest advantages of IAT are the ability to measure non-evaluative beliefs and association, the easiness and flexibility of the procedure, robustness, the larger produced effect sizes, its reliability and the validity (and therefore easy to replicate) (De Houwer, 2002; Greenwald & Nosek, 2001). Recognizing the valuable features one must admit the three major disadvantages that can be distinguished (Bluemke & Friese, 2008). Numerous pairwise comparisons are required when researchers want to use the IAT for the evaluation of multiple target concepts (e.g. the different social groups within a multi-ethnic nation (Devos & Banaji, 2005)). This pairwise comparison can therefore be seen as one of the disadvantages of IAT (Bluemke & Friese, 2008). Another disadvantage is that the choice of category is often subjective and therefore difficult to select. Although, in some cases, the target object

2 (n.d.). Retrieved December 21, 2017, from https://implicit.harvard.edu/

of interest and its counter-category have a natural complement (e.g. good vs. bad) and therefore it does not pose always any difficulties (Bluemke & Friese, 2008). The third, and preferably most important one, is that questioning the absolute evaluation of target concepts only provides an ambiguous answer (Blanton, Jaccard, Gonzales, & Christie, 2006; Fiedler, Messner, & Bluemke, 2006; B. A. Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2005). Taken this into account, the measurements of the associative strength can be obfuscated with the exact nature of the attitudes under study. If related to the previous used example, the study could indicate that both black as white are liked by the participants but white people are liked more than the black people (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2010). Trying to solve this last statement has led to the creation of the Single- Target IAT (ST-IAT), brief IAT (BIAT) and the Go/No-Go association test (GNAT) (Bluemke & Friese, 2008). By explaining the differences compared to the IAT, the other IAT related implicit measures will be elaborated.

2.3.1.2. The Single-Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT) The ST- IAT differs from the original IAT due to the fact that the counter category (e.g. bad is the counter category of good) is not used (Wigboldus, Holland, & Van Knippenberg, 2004). Compared to the example of black versus white people, the ST-IAT would assess the association of white people towards positive and negative valance and would neglect black people (which can be seen as the counter category here). Neglecting this counter category changes the process of the original IAT. Where the original IAT has five different steps, the ST-IAT only has three steps (Bluemke & Friese, 2008). The first step is a single discrimination block of the evaluative stimuli (i.e. good or bad). This is followed by a second block of trials where the participants are instructed to use a response key to map both the target stimuli as the positive items and another response key to map the negative stimuli. The last phase is an inverted response key assignment. This means that the target stimuli and the negative stimuli are mapped together instead of the positive stimuli (as assigned in the second phase). By using the ST- IAT an arbitrary influence in the evaluation of a target category is reduced, compared to the usage of the IAT. This reduction gives researchers hope to receive higher criterion correlations (Bluemke & Friese, 2008). According to the researchers Bluemke and Friese (2008), the ST-IAT has three main benefits over the traditional approach. Besides the previously mentioned evaluation of a single target category, the second and third advantage are its reliability and its efficient way to do so. Two disadvantages can be given as well. The first one is the fact that no multiple target concepts can be investigated. Besides, the fact that the consistency is moderate concerns the second disadvantage (Raccuia, 2016).

2.3.1.3. The Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT) The name of the BIAT method already gives an indication about the adjustment to the original method. Compared to the IAT, the time required to measure associations is shortened to approximately one minute, while the valuable properties of the IAT design are remained (B. A. Nosek, Bar-Anan, Sriram, Axt, & Greenwald, 2014). This modification of the IAT uses simplified instructions and tries to reduce the spontaneous variation in the subject strategy (Sriram & Greenwald, 2009). Participants within the brief IAT are asked to focus on only two of the four category-response mappings of the original IAT’s categories (i.e. two of the following four variants are compared: black-white/good-(bad) and white- black/bad-(good)). Three instructions are given when subjects are shown two category labels together with their exemplars. First, they are asked to keep in mind what they were showed. Secondly, they are instructed to respond to these items with a focal response key. Finally in the last instruction, they need to respond to any other stimuli with an non-focal response key (Sriram & Greenwald, 2009). Two blocks can be distinguished within the BIAT, namely a compatible and incompatible block. Figure 5 should clarify the procedure. Within the compatible block (phase 1), the participants are asked to press the focal key i for categories male and math, while the other e key is used for anything else (e.g. female and arts). As indicated in the figure, the participant must press the e key in the first trial. In the second trial, there is a male presented as stimulus, and therefore the participant should press i. In the incompatible block (phase 2), the participant is then asked to press the focal key i for categories female and math, while the other e key is used for anything else (Rothermund & Wentura, 2010). It is thus expected that the participant presses the e key in the first trial, while in the second trial the participant should press the key i. The reduced trails, less than 80, compared to the original IAT, ensure a reduction of the administration time. Unfortunately, the reliability of the procedure should be further investigated. A second disadvantage is the fact that the properties of the BIAT vary with the choice of focal categories (Sriram & Greenwald, 2009).

Figure 5: Example of the BIAT

2.3.1.4. The Go/No-Go Association Test (GNAT) The GNAT tries to assess the strength of a relationship between two poles of an attribute dimension (e.g. good versus bad) and a target category, which is comparable to both the priming tasks and the original IAT (B. Nosek & Banaji, 2001). A priming task can be best described as the implicit memory effect where one stimulus can influence the response to another stimuli. Different from the original IAT, but similar to the ST-IAT, is the contrasting category that is omitted. Similar to the original IAT, the assessment of associations is executed by examining the speed of categorization when categories are paired together (which assesses the degree to which items belong into the target category) (B. Nosek & Banaji, 2001; Teachman A., 2007). The GNAT works by presenting a signal and noise stimulus for brief periods of time, where the tasks require a go or no-go response. When participants choose the response go, the appearing items belong to the target (signal) category and attribute (noise). If this is not the case, the no-go response is appropriate (B. Nosek & Banaji, 2001). In order to illustrate this, the target (signal) category is a fruit and the attribute (noise) can be either good or bad. A go response is triggered when fruit appears as an item of the target category in combination with an evaluative attribute, which should be labelled as good. If the evaluative attribute, bad, appears on the screen in combination with the fruit stimuli of the target category, the no-go response should be selected by the participant. Two conditions are required in order to properly execute the task. On the one hand, it is needed that a simultaneous identification of both the attribute (e.g. good) and the target category (e.g. fruit) takes place. On the other hand, the identification of stimuli that represent the same target category (as in the first condition) and an alternative attribute (e.g. bad) must also happen simultaneously (B. Nosek & Banaji, 2001).

Compared to the IAT, the GNAT has advantages due to its adaptability in selecting a context for measuring preferences. As previously indicated, the counter category used within the IAT is here omitted. This allows a more direct investigation of a specific attitude object due to the isolation of preferences, specific categories from relative comparisons with a singular category can be formed (B. Nosek & Banaji, 2001; Teachman A., 2007). Due to the fact that participants find it often very difficult to control their responses on the measure, the GNAT has the potential to reduce the impact of self- representation on the task performance (Teachman A., 2007). Unfortunately, disadvantages over the IAT must be recognized as well. The GNAT has a low validity and its test-retest reliability is rather low (Rudolph, Schröder-Abé, Schütz, Gregg, & Sedikides, 2008).

2.3.1.5. The Sorting Paired Features task (SPF) Unlike the other, previously mentioned measurements, the sorting paired features task makes it able to measure four different associations within one single response block. Comparable to the IAT, the SPF asks to simultaneously categorize two different stimuli at once (Bar-Anan, Nosek, & Vianello, 2009).

For example, consider following two catergories namely good versus bad and dog versus cat. The measurement proceeds as follows: the four different category pairs are presented at each corner of the screen as illustrated in figure 63. The figure is originally found in the research article of Bar-Anan, Nosek and Vianello (2009). Using their example, following pairs are formed: good-dog, bad-dog, good-cat and bad-cat. In order to response, four standard keys on the keyboard are selected for each category. When the trial has started, the participants categorize the items cojointly into one of the four category pairs as quickly as possible. If a mistake is made, a red cross appears on the screen and the participant has to do the categorization again.

Figure 6: Illustration of an SPF trial2

Due to the specific and advanced theoretical understanding of associations, this measurement has unique properties for research applications. The SPF is capable of measuring associations for non-focal and thus less accessible categories. The SPF is also able to discover the focal, highly accessible targets of the categorization. Furthermore, within the original IAT, the transition from one trial block to another is vulnerable to effects related to practice, distraction, fatigue and learning. The SPF does not have any irrelevant factors that might change over time and will not have any influence on one assesment compared to others (like with the IAT). The reason for this is the measurement in one block.

The main advantage of SPF is the effectiveness of measuring non-focal associations that are not obvious, not consciously or incidental. Also more information other than the reaction time is measured on a single stimulus. Moreover, this method can be particully useful to measure the effect of a manipulation on the accessibility of categories and to collaborate seperate estimations of the four associations (Bar-Anan et al., 2009). Two disadvantages should be mentioned as well. The first disadvantage concerns the validity of the task, where future research should assess the validity properly. Moreover, this task has only been succesful in the assessment of race-related associations and to associations related to political attitudes (Gawronski & De Houwer, 2014).

3 (Bar-Anan et al., 2009)

2.3.1.6. The Implicit Association Procedure (IAP) The IAP can be seen as a parallel measure to the IAT. Originally this procedure was designed to assess the convergent validity of the IAT. However, promising results suggest that the IAP might even be a more promising instrument due to the robustness to faking instructions (Hogendoorn et al., 2008). Both IAT and IAP try to discover the automatic associations between different concepts (Greenwald et al., 1998; Schnabel, Banse, & Asendorpf, 2006). Moreover, IAP and IAT use discriminations of me versus not me (target discrimination) with discrimination of shy versus non shy (using the example of shyness, similar to the research of Asendorpf, Banse and Mücke (2002)). Contrary to the original IAT, the ‘me’ of the target discrimination was not explicitly shown on the screen in the IAP, and therefore no label for alternative targets (i.e. the opposite target category) are given within the IAP. Therefore the unipolar concepts can be assessed as well using the IAP (Gawronski & De Houwer, 2014; Schnabel et al., 2006). Another difference between these two implicit measures, is that implicit association procedure uses the automatic approach and avoidance behaviour by using the joystick movements. This is a theory within the psychology, which will be extensively explained in section 2.3.4.2. IAP is therefore an adaptation of the original IAT measure.

2.3.2. Cognitive processing measures

Although multiple problems of the IAT are solved by using alternative methodologies such as the GNAT, one main issue remains within this subgroup. The IAT and other alternative measures only provide an indirect measurement of the beliefs as they assess the associations rather than the relations among stimuli. Keeping this deficit of the IAT in mind, a new subgroup can be formed based upon the cognitive functioning of humans (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2006). Cognitive processing is described by Greenberg (1995) as: “the process of actively thinking about a stressor, the thoughts and feelings it evokes and its implications for one’s life and future”. When giving this definition, it was in the context of stressful experiences. In this case the stressor can therefore be replaced by using the word stimuli.

2.3.2.1. The implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) As it turns out, the IAT only recognizes the relative associative strength. This means that the rigorous nature of the attitudes can be concealed. When using IAT, different attitudes can be linked to faster responses for white people compared to the response time of black people. There is a possibility that both the white and the black people are liked, with the only difference that the white people are liked even more by the participants. Researchers were well aware of this deficit and three measurements are proposed by the literature as a solution for this problem, namely the Go/No-Go IAT (section 2.3.1.4.) and the extrinsic affective Simon task (2.3.3.1.) (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2010). The third proposed solution is the IRAP. The IRAP is based upon the relational frame theory, which states that the human language and cognition are derived from stimuli relations (Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, 2001). Within this procedure, pre-experimental verbal relations are determined before executing the

measurement. Once the experiment has started, the participants must respond to stimuli (e.g. words, statements, or pictures) according to the pre-experimentally verbal relations on each trial (Barnes- holmes, Hayden, Barnes-holmes, & Stewart, 2008).

The IRAP consists of two different parts, namely the trial blocks and the actual six test blocks. Each block contains different trials and shows one of the two attribute stimuli (e.g. pleasant or unpleasant) together with one of the target stimuli. Here, the participant has two different response options where each response option has its own key assignment. This key assignment could differ in time, so participants are warned to pay close attention to these assignments. Feedback contingencies are received after each trial block, and are reversed in the next block. By doing so, the instructions and feedback determines which response can be identified as correct and incorrect. The only difference between the practice and test block, is that mistakes are not allowed within the practise block. During the test block, the participants are asked to respond fast and therefore making mistakes is allowed (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2010). Similar to the IAT, the instructions of how to react to stimuli are given (e.g. pleasant-meat to pleasant-vegetables). Participants are also notified that some parts within the procedure are against their beliefs, and are therefore contradictory. Compared to the IAT, the IRAP provides more information which is not available within the IAT results, and can therefore be seen as more valuable than the IAT (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2010). However, there might be a possibility that both methods can overlap (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2010).

2.3.2.2. The Initial Preference Task (IPT) The IPT is used to measure the implicit self-esteem, which tries to assess the automatic, non-conscious evaluations of the self. Due to the fact that methodology papers of the IPT are rather scarce, the IPT’s used in research differs a lot (Stieger, Voracek, & Formann, 2012). Previous research within the literature has exposed an inexplicable attachment of people to their own names. The so-called Name Letter Effect (NLE) is often described as the tendency of people to prefer the letters in their own name over any other letters in the alphabet. This NLE is often used as a measure for the implicit self-esteem, mostly by using the Initial Preference Task. However, the use of the word test in not appropriate as it only uses the initial letter, and not all of the name letters. Therefore, the term IPT better reflects the procedure more accurately (Stieger et al., 2012). A part of the literature suggests that the family name is one of the main reasons to have children (Arnold & Kuo, 1984; Callan & Kee, 1981; Tavuchis & Ramu, 1986). Another part of the literature stresses the cocktail party effect. This effect is characterized by the automatic drawn attention of people towards their own names (Caldwell, Shapiro, & Sorensen, 1997; Cherry, 1953; Minami, Tsuru, & Okita, 1992; Wood & Cowan, 1995). A third remarkable finding is the flattering feeling when a professor remembers your name or the preference of the letters in their own names above letters that are not in their names (Koole, Dijksterhuis A., & van Knippenberg A., 2001; Nuttin, 1985, 1987; Pelham, Mirenberg, & Jones, 2002). The NLE has its roots within the

emotional processes, described by Nuttin (1985, 1987). Also, Greenwald and Banaji (1995) were able to link the name letter to the implicit self-esteem, described as “the introspectively unidentified (or inaccurately identified) effect of the self-attitude on the evaluation of self-associated and self-dissociated objects”. This indicates that everything associated with the self, creates a positive feeling for the self, mostly driven by positive unconscious associations about the self. An important remark is that the NLE is dissociated from the explicit forms of self-esteem (Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000; Koole et al., 2001). The difference is that the implicit processes are mediated by an automatic-intuitive cognitive system, whereas the explicit processes are initiated by a controlled-rational cognitive system. A good reliability is obtained when using the IPT, when compared to other implicit measures (Stieger et al., 2012).

2.3.2.3. The Stereotypic Explanatory Bias (SEB) As previously mentioned, people can hide their true beliefs and attitudes, and therefore be unwilling to admit that they are for example racist or have some kind of negative judgements regarding certain social groups. Researchers were unable to accurately report these topics before the discovery of this implicit measure (i.e. SEB) (Greenwald, & Banaji, 1995). When a participant is less likely to give an explanation for behaviours that are not in line with the expectancies than for behaviours that are in line with the expectancies, this explanatory bias is preferred (Sekaquaptewa, Espinoza, Thompson, Vargas, & von Hippel, 2003). To illustrate, if the person ‘Amber’ is described as a smart, intelligent person. Amber would be more likely to obtain a good grade in comparison with ‘Karen’, a girl who is seen as less intelligent. These expectancies can be seen as stereotypes. The goal of the SEB is to measure the implicit stereotyping and be able to predict both positive and negative behavioural outcomes. This is done by means of reflecting the unintended influence of these stereotypes on the processes (Sekaquaptewa et al., 2003). The procedure of the SEB, consists of two different stages in which the participants are asked to engage themselves in a job interview accompanied by a research assistant (RA). In the first stage of the procedure, the participant is asked to be the interviewer and the RA is doomed to be the applicant for a specified job. Here, the participant or the interviewer has the choice between non- and moderately stereotypic questions. Afterwards, when the research assistant has left the room, the participant has to fill in a questionnaire, assessing the RA’s interview skills. The second stage of the procedure is the other way around. The RA is the interviewer, while the participant is the interviewee and has to fulfil the role play by answering the questions like they would in a real job interview. The second questionnaire contains questions concerning the RA’s skills of asking questions (Sekaquaptewa et al., 2003).

The main advantage is the fact that the SEB is able to detect and reveal the attitudes of which participants are unwilling to admit. Moreover, this procedure has an ability to both predict the positive and negative behavioural outcomes. One disadvantage can be given, the SEB is not that practical as often interviews are conducted, which can be seen as rather time consuming (Sekaquaptewa et al., 2003).

2.3.3. Semantic processing measures

In case of semantic priming, participants of an experiment are capable to process stimuli better if a related word comes primary before the task. This is also known as the semantic-facilitation effect. The word that comes first is presented outside the conscious awareness, followed by a target stimulus, which requires a decision. The word mother will therefore be easier understood if the word father was presented first in comparison with a situation where the word ‘cat’ would come primary. (Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 1997). Semantic processing finds its roots within Quillian’s theory of semantic memory search and semantic preparation. This theory describes the capacity of humans, especially the fact that humans can possess a lot of information concerning a simple concept. For example, if people are asked to describe a concept (e.g. a machine), they will first state the obvious facts, but afterwards non-obvious facts will be given (e.g. software of the machine) (Collins & Loftus, 1975). In reality unlimited concepts exist, and are represented as different nodes in this theory. Relational links between different concepts/nodes describing simple facts represent the properties of the concepts and work most of the time both ways. In our example, a relational link of the concept machine can be the specification typewriter. Different relational links are possible, therefore criticalities are in place. These are numbers which indicate the importance to the concept of each link (e.g. it is not that important for the machine that one kind can be described as a typewriter) (Collins & Loftus, 1975). The core idea of this theory is to seek for an intersection between different concepts in a semantic network. The search is done by looking at all the nodes linked to the used concepts and indicate them using an activation tag if no intersection is found. After the placement of the activation tag, the search continues by looking at all the nodes linked to each of the first nodes. An intersection is found if a tag from another start concept is encountered (Collins & Loftus, 1975).

2.3.3.1. Affective Simon Task (AST) The affective simon task (AST) is an implicit measurement derived from the older Simon paradigm (Simon, 1990; Simon & Rudell, 1967). Here, the participants are requested to make a spatial response (e.g. left or right) based on a non-spatial stimulus. In the most common case, faster responses are observed when the spatial position of the stimulus is in line with the spatial features of the response that has to be made by the participant (e.g. when participants need to press the right key when a red stimuli is seen on the screen, faster response time will be determined when the stimuli already is located on the right hand side of the screen, etc.) (Craft & Simon, 1970). Three main elements play an important role when analysing the Simon paradigm at an abstract level. At first, the correct response must be determined by a relevant feature. Furthermore, there must be an irrelevant feature available that must be ignored by the participant. A third element is the availability of a response. Multiple studies already proved that the irrelevant feature can influence the accuracy and response time (Bargh, 1992; Jacoby, 1991). Compared to other paradigms, it is of great importance to emphasize that the irrelevant feature is

meaningful related, whereas the relevant feature is not meaningful related to the irrelevant feature and the response (Kornblum, 1992; Kornblum & Lee, 1995).

An affective Simon paradigm is one in which the response and the irrelevant feature both specify affective information. This paradigm is used to assess the automatic affective processing in a flexible matter. Noteworthy, in this affective case the same essential characteristic applies as described above. The affective simon paradigm differs from the original spatial Simon paradigm because of the different nature of the relation between the irrelevant feature and the responses together with the nature of the irrelevant feature (De Houwer, Crombez, Baeyens, & Hermans, 2001). Using an affective Simon task, the participants are asked to select the correct response by processing the relevant feature. Additionally, the participant must also ignore an irrelevant feature that is meaningfully related to the response, but not to the relevant stimulus feature (De Houwer et al., 2001; De Houwer & Eelen, 1998; Kornblum & Lee, 1995). The related affective Simon effect was first demonstrated by De Houwer and Eelen (1998). The reaction times were faster when both the presented word and the response had the same affective connotation compared to the situation where the affective connotation was different. In this experiment, the participants were explicitly asked to use the grammatical category of the word instead of its meaning to respond. In later experiments an affective Simon effect was also found when the semantic category of the presented word was relevant in addition to the previous situation where the grammatical category was the relevant feature (De Houwer et al., 2001).

The main advantage of the AST is the flexibility of the procedure. It is able to measure a single stimulus. Beside the flexibility, an important disadvantage should be elaborated as well. Research showed us that increasing the proportion of the stimuli that have a clear valance, gives the AST stronger and more reliable effects. This is only the case if the valance is a salient feature of the materials, which could be assessed as a disadvantages as the use of implicit measures is mostly in order when the valance of the stimuli is not evident (Voß, Rothermund, & Wentura, 2003).

2.3.3.2. Extrinsic affective Simon task (EAST) The EAST is a modified version of the IAT where the new variant is less susceptible to non-associative effects of task recoding and can be used to assess single and multiple attitudes. Different from the IAT, where a comparison of performance is based on different tasks, the EAST is founded on a comparison of performance within a single task (Houwer, 2003). Two unusual features can be distinguished. First of all, the target concepts do not differ in valence and second, the valance of the target concept is manipulated (De Houwer, 2001, Footnote 4). An example of such an EAST described by De Houwer (2001) is where two different tasks need to be performed by the participants. Within the first task, the participants are instructed to press the first key for positive and person words whereas the second key needs to be pressed for negative and animal words. The consecutive task was different because the first

key serves for positive and animal words, whereas the second key needs to be pressed for negative and person words. Results showed that in both tasks the responses were in general faster when the response was associated with the same valance as the presented word. An alternative way to assess attitudes is therefore suggested by comparing the performance on different trials within a task (Houwer, 2003). This way the Extrinsic affective Simon effect can be calculated by comparing these trials within the same task which results in EAST effects who are less influenced by associative variables. In addition, three other main strengths are established. First EAST effects are built on comparisons of trials within a single task so confounds related to task recording are less likely. Secondly, measurements of single attitudes are possible. And lastly, within one task multiple attitude objects can be examined. Beside the three main strengths, there are also two disadvantages that need to be elaborated. The first one states that the reliability effects are low, but is expected to be increased when increasing the number of trials. Furthermore, smaller effects compared to the IAT and GNAT are found within this procedure (Houwer, 2003).

2.3.3.3. The Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) The AMP can be classified as an implicit measure of attitudes within the projective tests. These test are intuitively completed by participants using the misattributions people make for their own evaluations (Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). Two words are key within the affect misattribution task, namely affect and misattribution. The (un)pleasant reaction is meant by the word affect (Frijda, 1999; Russell, 2003) and misattribution can be described as mistaken the effect of one source and misplacing it for another effect (Payne et al., 2005). The AMP shows great potential because it is easy to interpret and does not take long to conduct (less than 5 minutes). Also, the AMP offers advantages due to its validity, reliability and sensitivity (Payne et al., 2005). When using the AMP, the participants are asked to make evaluative judgements in a dubious situation. The judgement is pronounced after participants are exposed to a prime (attitude object), which is either evaluated in a positive or a negative way (this is the affect part). Further, participants get to see the target that is said to be ambiguous (in how the evaluation should take place) and are instructed to try and ignore the influence of the prime. Their core task is to just evaluate the target. Nevertheless, without their knowledge, the prime showed to the participants, will have some kind of influence. Influences of this prime on target evaluation are therefore used to assess the attitudes of the participants toward the prime objects (Payne et al., 2005).

2.3.4. Approach and avoidance measures

The distinction between approach and avoidance may be seen as one of the oldest ideas in history used to describe the behaviour of organisms. Democritus (460- 370 B.C.E.) indirectly mentioned this distinction as the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure, which can be interpreted as approach behaviour. Four reasons can be given for the fundamental importance of the approach-avoidance distinction. As the distinction can be found in many other forms of living organisms, the applicability

can be seen as a first argument to stress the importance of the approach-avoidance distinction. Examples of organisms where any form of approach and avoidance systems were detected, are hooded rats (Maier, Vandenhoff, & Crowne, 1988); rhesus monkeys (Stevenson-Hinde, Stillwell-Barnes, & Zunz, 1980); yellow-bellied marmots (Armitage, 1986); octopuses (Mather & Anderson, 1993); male guppies (Budaev & Zhuikov, 1998) and many others. A more striking organism is the single cell amoeba, where A-type (approach) and W-type (withdrawal) organisms are distinguished (Schneirla, 1959). A second reason for approach-avoidance fundamental importance is the existence of an approach and avoidance system in the brain. Activity in the amygdala is suggested to be linked to avoidance motivation as the processing of negative emotional faces have been associated to an exaggerated amygdala activation. Approach motivation leads to dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, which can be seen as a part of the human’s reward system (Depue & Collins, 1999; Hoebel, Rada, Mark, & Pothos, 1999; Ito, Cacioppo, & Lang, 1998; LeDoux, 1995; Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999; Zuckerman, 1991). Furthermore, a third reason is the speed at which the approach and avoidance reactions occur (Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1999; Elliot & Covington, 2001; Orains & Heerwagen, 1992). The approach- and avoidance-based motivational processes are seen to be immediate and automatic. This reasoning is described as the automatic evaluation effect in the attitude literature. Intuition can be seen as a final reason to prove the fundamental importance of approach and avoidance. Intuition is labelled as an important extra source of information by Lieberman (2000) that can help to understand the motivated behaviour in reaction to positive vs negative events (Elliot & Covington, 2001)..

In order to fully understand the concept of approach and avoidance (AA), it is of great importance to comprehend two different types of automatic approach and avoidance behaviours. The first type is assumed to change the distance between the self and the object due to any kind of behaviour (Seibt, Neumann, Nussinson, & Strack, 2008; Strack & Deutsch, 2004). The second type makes use of certain muscles to direct the AA-behaviour (Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993). Here, a motoric pattern can be distinguished and be linked to either an approach or avoidance reaction, which depends upon the reference point (Brendl, Markman, & Messner, 2005; Seibt et al., 2008). There are two common situations regarding the reference point. In the first situation, where the object is taken as fixed, the flexing of the arm and the movement of the object towards itself or away from the self can be recognized as an approach or avoidance reaction. In the second situation, the self is seen as the fixed point of reference, the combination of flexing the arm and the withdrawal from the hand/ self away from the object indicates an avoidance reaction. Whereas the approach from the self towards the object can be classified as an approach behaviour. Both types can be classified under AA-behaviour and thus are assumed to have a direction, but differ in the feature used to direct this behaviour (Krieglmeyer, De Houwer, & Deutsch, 2013).

2.3.4.1. Approach Avoidance Task (AAT) The approach avoidance task (AAT), often also referred to as the approach avoidance procedure (AAP), is again designed to be less effected by the problems associated with the direct measures. It hopes to assess attitudes and associations in different domains (Rinck & Becker, 2007). The distinction of approach-avoidance is here used to investigate and predict motivated human behaviour. The approach motivation can be described as the energization of behaviour by, or the direction of behaviour toward, positive stimuli. In contrast, the avoidance motivation can be defined as the energization of behaviour by, or the direction away from, negative stimuli (Elliot & Covington, 2001). Two advantages can be linked to this task, a first advantage describes the easiness of the task. The second advantage is that this AAT makes it able to measure the avoidance tendencies caused by threat, rather than the threat representations. A disadvantage is that future research is needed to future establish the usefulness of the AAT (Heuer, Rinck, & Becker, 2007).

When describing approach and avoidance motivation, five aspects of the definition need to be tackled in order to have a full understanding of this distinction. As mentioned before in both the motivations, the energization can be understood as the initial instigation (James, 1890, vol. 2; p555) and direction, which refers to the guiding or channelling of behaviour in a specific manner (Atkinson & Birch, 1972). Second, the direct link with the physical or psychological movement should be elaborated. This concept indicates that there is a link between positively evaluated stimuli and approach orientation (cfr. negatively evaluated stimuli and avoidance orientation; Elliot, 2006). Thirdly, in line with the physical or psychological movement, two forms of movement should be distinguished, namely movement away and movement toward. The upper means that we keep something that is negative or we get away from something negative. Whereas the latter means keeping something positive that is currently presented or getting something positive which wasn’t represented yet (Herzberg, 1966). A fourth important aspect of the definition, is the presence of the evaluative dimension of approach-avoidance motivation. This evaluative dimension can take various forms including liked/disliked, desirable/undesirable, beneficial/harmful and many other forms that are submitted under the positive/negative rubric. A last important aspect is the precision of stimuli, where a stimulus is used to refer to either a concrete and observable or to an abstract, internally generated representation of an event/object/possibility (Elliot, 2006).

When participants evaluate stimuli, there are usually two important effects to be distinguished. Solarz discovered these effects in 1960 by using stimulus-response-compatibility (SRC-task). Participants pulled negatively evaluated words slower to themselves than cards describing negative words. In the same reasoning, the negative words on the cards are faster to be pushed away from the participant than when positive words described on the cards. This discovery is known in the literature as the (in)compatible task and is replicated multiple times. The compatible effect describes the situation were

the participants are faster to pull positive words and to push negative words. An incompatible effect, however, describes the situation where participants are slower to push positive words and pull negative words.. (Chen & Bargh, 1999; De Houwer et al., 2001; Solarz, 1960). Moreover, the strength of the attitudes toward the stimuli (i.e. whether you (dis)like a stimulus) can influence the size of the (in)compatibility effect (Rinck & Becker, 2007). It is important to state that within this experiment, the activation of attitudes cannot be seen as automatic as the participant is consciously and intentionally evaluating each of the stimuli presented to him/her (Chen & Bargh, 1999; Solarz, 1960).

However, other experiments have confirmed that the process of evaluation is automatically linked to the approach and avoidance responses. This was obtained by Chen and Bargh in 1999, where the participants were asked to push (or pull) the lever (i.e. a rigid bar resting on a pivot), as quickly as possible when a stimulus appeared. Contrary to Solarz’s experiment in 1960, the researchers did not mention anything about an evaluation. But even without the mentioning, the experiment has showed us that the response latencies continued to be a function of the evaluative meaning of the stimuli with a motoric response called for by the task (pulling or pushing the lever). This experiment confirms that the speed at which approach and avoidance reactions, which is here assumed to be automatic, is one of the fundamental reasons of the importance of approach and avoidance behaviour (Chen & Bargh, 1999).

2.3.4.2. (Feedback) Joystick AAT When presenting the stimuli on a computer screen and using a joystick instead of a lever, a new implicit measure called the Joystick AAT is obtained (Chen & Bargh, 1999). In this case, the participants are seen as the target and are asked to respond by means of the joystick, which is connected to a computer. The responses can either be to pull or push the joystick towards or away from the self. Rinck and Becker (2007) used this kind of experiment in order to assess the approach and avoidance tendencies regarding fear of spiders. A possible disadvantage is a re-interpretation of the arm movement. When the arm movement is towards the self, the participant can have either the impression to see this movement as either an approach or avoidance tendency which depends on the reference point taken by the subject (Brendl et al., 2005; Heuer et al., 2007; Seibt et al., 2008). Adding visual feedback to the experiment could solve this disadvantage. While moving the joystick, the size of the picture can change according to the response given by the participant (Heuer et al., 2007). Rinck and Becker (2007) called this the zooming effect: pulling the joystick will increase the size of the pictures whereas pushing the joystick will shrink the picture. This causes the illusion of approach and avoiding which is why this new implicit measure is called the Feedback-joystick task.

The main advantage is that this method can be changed into a modification task. Moreover, the joystick AAT has a high reliability factor (Tuulia & van de Vijver, 2015). Unfortunately, there are also disadvantages linked to this procedure. One advantage is the fact that this procedure is highly susceptible

for the outlier correction method. Furthermore, the interpretation for the arm movement within the joystick AAT can be ambiguous. A third and fourth disadvantage assess the sensitivity and the validity. These are considered to be less than both the sensitivity and validity of the manikin task (described in section 2.3.4.3.) (Krieglmeyer & Deutsch, 2010).

2.3.4.3. Manikin task When talking about the manikin task, the participant itself is no longer the target. Instead, a manikin appears randomly on the screen. The response of the participant can either be to let the manikin move toward or away from the stimuli. Rather remarkable is the fact that the responses have to make the decision not for them, but for a third person (the manikin) to move away or towards the stimuli. The change towards an object that moves itself facilitates the use of only one reference point. By doing so, the possibility of multiple interpretations are excluded (Kraus, 2014). The required response is instructed before starting the trial and can be activated by using one or multiple keys. To illustrate, an example of an experiment could be that the manikin should be moved towards the stimuli when the stimuli is a noun and away when the stimuli is an adjective (De Houwer et al., 2001). This procedure does not require an actual approach or avoidance behaviour, like the AAT for example. When the (in)compatibility effects are presented, the valence of the stimuli have an influence in the direction of the manikin movement (De Houwer et al., 2001).

However, a limitation should be mentioned. According to some researchers, no clearly conclusion can be drawn concerning the fact that the manikin task is able to activate the AA state of the participant in response to the manikin’s approach-avoidance response. They believe that this AA state could have been the result of watching the manikin move (or at least have contributed to it) (Woud, Maas, Becker, & Rinck, 2013).

2.3.4.4. The Swipe Approach-Avoidance Procedure (SwAAP) Due to the evolving technology from the last decennia with the discovery of touchscreens, a new implicit measure has arisen. Kraus and Hofmann (2014) were the first to describe the Swipe Approach- Avoidance Procedure and saw great potential in this implicit measure. Here the approach and avoidance motivations are mimicked by the swiping behaviour (quick sweeping motion), which have become natural and rather intuitive over time. Different from previously mentioned approach and avoidance based measurements, is that there is no need for external devices. Similar to the Manikin task there is a single reference point that is created by touching and moving the object(s) on the screen. Therefore the SwAAP is not sensitive to multiple interpretations of the approach avoidance reactions. The impact of evaluative coding is addressed by using the same instructions (non-confounded) for both the (in)compatible response tasks (Kraus, 2014). Within the procedure, the main task of the participant is to either swipe an image from the central cross to the indicated target area in either the upper or lower part of the touchscreen indicated in figure 7. The target area is as select presented together with the stimuli,

which replaces the central cross in the middle. By touching the image, the participant will see themselves as the fixed reference point and the distance to the stimuli can be varied by direct movement. In the figure, the stimulus is a beautiful landscape. The upper of the picture can thus be seen as an incompatible task (i.e. pushing away something pleasant), whereas the bottom of the picture is a compatible task.

Figure 7: (In)compatible task

The discussed approach and avoidance (AA) tendencies are therefore also presented here and discussed by Kraus (2014). The upper appears when the distance between the self and the object decreases, thus when the participant swipes the image to the lower part of the touchscreen. The latter, on the contrary, happens when the participant swipes the object to the upper part of the touchscreen and by doing so increasing the distance between the self and the object. During a trial block, which is a sequence of different tasks, either a compatible or incompatible trial result is evoked. This is obtained by different combinations of the two independent design factors, namely the stimulus valence (positive vs. negative) and the swipe direction (toward vs. away from the self) (Kraus, 2014). As previously mentioned, a compatible result is obtained when a positive stimuli is swiped toward or when a negative picture is swiped away from the self. On the contrary, when swiping the positive picture away from or a negative picture towards the self the literature speaks of an incompatible trial.

A main advantage of the SwAAP is the use of neutral instructions together with the combination of both tasks within one block. The elimination of the typical block structure, one block for the compatible task and another for the incompatible task, minimizes the evaluative coding processes (Rothermund, Teige- Mocigemba, Gast, & Wentura, 2009). A second advantage, discovered by Kraus (2014), indicates that the SwAAP has a higher sensitivity than the approach avoidance procedure (AAP). Mostly this is due to the fact that the SwAAP has five outcome measures, instead of just one with the AAP (reaction time). Four other outcome measures are used in the SwAAP besides the response time. The response time is the difference between the appearance of the stimulus until it is first touched. The second measure is the overall swipe time, that is the duration time from the first moment the stimulus is touched till it is released (when it reaches the target area). The swipe pressure is the third measure that is considered using the SwAAP. The fourth and the last measure describes the swipe distance and the speed of the swipe. The upper, the swipe distance, describes the vector between the first and last touched point whereas the latter, the speed, is the swipe distance divided by swipe time. Unfortunately, the validity and the reliability must be further assessed in future research (Kraus, 2014).

Figure 8: Summary of the implicit measurements

2.4. Embodied cognition theory As the SwAAP will be investigated in this master dissertation, other theories that could influence the outcome should be investigated as well. The execution of the SwAAP is done with devices that possess a touchscreens. These touchscreens are often fabricated within tablets, smartphones or a computer. When one thinks about the times when he/she uses the tablet, one should confess that this is done in multiple positions. This is quite different from the one, fixed position which is often used when sitting for example at a computer (e.g. position of the manikin task, joystick AAT, etc.). The different positions of the tablet requires different kind of body movements, which can provide important informative input to cognitions as stated by the embodied cognition literature (Barsalou, 1999; Markman & Brendl, 2005). The body movements used to execute the swipe movement, is the movement of the arm either toward or away from the self. It is believed that the eyes of the participants will follow the image during the swipe, stating that the eyes will make a movement that could be linked to this swipe movement. The embodied cognition theory (Förster, Friedman, Özelsel, & Denzler, 2006; Friedman & Förster, 2000) states that the upward movement from either the head or the eye can be linked to a more abstract processing style whereas the downward eye or head movement can be associated with a more narrow, concrete processing style (Förster, 2009; Trope & Liberman, 2010). This statements is based on two pillars elaborated in 2.4.1. and 2.4.2..

2.4.1. Distance of the stimuli

The first one describes the habituation to look down for processing the stimuli that are considered to be nearby whereas the processing of the distant stimuli are associated by looking up. The ecological insight teaches us that within the lower part of the visual field (i.e. looking down) nearby objects are more common to be seen. On the contrary, the upper part of the visual field (i.e. looking up) contains distant objects or stimuli that are more prevalent (Previc, 1990). The same conclusion is obtained when our feet are seen as the starting point of this visual field, which ranges from near (i.e. the feet) to distant and hence the higher in the visual space, the more distant an object is (Ooi, Wu, & He, 2001). The movements (e.g. head or eye movements) are therefore associated with proximity, and can thus serve as a distance cue.

2.4.2. The Construal Level Theory (CLT)

The second pillar describes the influence of the construal level theory (CLT). It is the purpose of the construal level theory to create a framework where the relationship between the psychological distance and the level of abstractness is elaborated. Psychological distance is an important determinant to choose whether primary or secondary characteristics are used as the basis of evaluation (Liberman, Trope, & Wakslak, 2007). The psychological distance is used when it is not part of one’s direct experience. Different dimensions, who supports the removement from direct experience, can be distinguished within

the psychological distance, namely spatial, temporal, hypothetical and social distance from an event (Liberman et al., 2007).

The first one concerns the spatial distance, where an obvious link between spatial distance and mental construal is seen. For example consider the experiment at Washington Square campus where a video of interacting students was shown. Two spatial conditions were provided where the first one, the spatial near condition, concerns NY student that were seen in video, whereas in the second condition (i.e. spatial distant condition), the students were located in Italy. The participant who received the spatial distant condition believed that within the interaction of the students more abstract language was used than those within the spatial near condition (Fujita, Henderson, Eng, Trope, & Liberman, 2006). Also more dimensions are needed to elaborate the amount of variance in the near future preferences than in the distant future preferences (Liberman et al., 2007).

Temporal distance is the second dimension where the near future events are represented in a concrete, contextualized manner with the stress on subordinate features, whereas the distant future events stresses the superordinate feature while representing events in an abstract, structured manner. Several studies were executed to provide this evidence and are listed by Trope, Liberman and Wakslak (2007). The different experiments concerned the temporal differences in construals, preferences for judgements for events happening in the near or distant future, temporal shifts in the structure of self-representation, shifts in identification, the difference between superordinate purposes and subordinate means, the tendency to identify behaviours in terms of underlying traits and the temporal differences in abstraction.

The third dimension is hypothetical distance description, which reasons that an event can be removed from direct experience when it could have happened but has not actually happened. Another situation where this might occur is when the event is possible to happen, but is not certain to happen. A probable event would thus seem less distant than an improbable event. Researchers studied the relationships between the mental construal and the probability, and found out that participants in the low-likelihood (i.e. concrete) condition created more, limited groups out of objects compared to the high-likelihood (i.e. abstract) condition (Liberman, Sagristano, & Trope, 2002). The effect of probability can also be seen as identification measures, proven by an experiment where an assistant position was described in either a broad, general way or by using more specific, concrete terms. In the first condition, the high- probability condition, participants were told that the position was as good as certain to be his/hers, whereas in the other condition, the low-probability condition, participants received the news that it was very unlikely to get the position. When surprising the participants with a test to see whether or not they could recall the nature of the assistantship, the high-probability condition was more likely to recall specific descriptions rather than general ones compared to the low-probability condition (Liberman et al., 2007). In line with the previously mentioned discoveries, the relation between probability and visual

structure measures also revealed construal differences. This indicates that the performance of a task was less when they believed that they could later complete the task. On the contrary, the performance increased when the participants believed they were unlikely to complete the task later on (Liberman et al., 2007).

The last dimension is the social distance, where two forms of social distances can be distinguished, namely similarity and power. Similarity indicates that the more similar someone is to oneself, the less socially distant they seem. Therefore, the behaviour performed by a similar other would be characterized at a lower level of construal than the behaviour by a dissimilar other. The latter (i.e. power) describes the situation were an increased level of power elevates the psychological distance one feels from others. Power priming leads to greater breadth of categorization and thus more abstract thinking (Smith & Trope, 2006).

As already indicated two possible states are possible within this theory, namely low and high level construal (Kerckhove, 2013; Liberman et al., 2007). Consider following example: two children are playing with a doll in the house. The high-level construal, containing no details describes this activity as “having fun”. In contrast, the low-level description of the activity would consist details such as the age of the children, the colour of the ball, etc.. The upper, low construal level, thus refers to near events which can be labelled as concrete construal. These construals are contextualized representations that include incidental and subordinate features of events and are therefore able to give a lot of details about upcoming events. The latter, high construal level, refers to more abstract, and therefore more distant events. Construals used here are rather schematic, decontextualized representations and do not contain any details concerning the events (Liberman et al., 2007). It must be pointed out that the context of the example is of great importance, as the high level “having fun” could be replaced by “wasting their time” if they are supposed to be studying for a test for example. This also indicates that a movement to the abstract, high level means neglecting features that are no longer of great importance. The process of abstraction becomes more schematic and abstract when more unique and incidental features are neglected.

Within the embodied cognition theory the nearby stimuli (as described above) are represented by lower- level, concrete concepts whereas the distant stimuli are represented by high-level, more abstract concepts. Different distances require thus a different perceptual processing style. Therefore, perceptual processing tends to be broader when the psychological distance increases and conceptual processing broadens when spatial distance increases (Kerckhove, 2013).

3. Methodology 3.1. Research question As the SwAAP is recently developed, both the reliability and the validity of the procedure are therefore less investigated. Kraus (2014) aimed to test this new procedure and investigate the validity of this novel implicit measure. Based upon other research findings, Kraus (2014) predicted that the SwAAP would be able to replicate the previously found compatible approach-avoidance effects (Brendl et al., 2005; Chen & Bargh, 1999). A faster response towards positive valanced stimuli is thus expected in comparison with the case where negative valanced stimuli are presented. Two studies were performed by Kraus (2014) that both used the SwAAP. Two small differences can be noted when comparing these two different procedures. A first difference is the standardization of the start procedure that was used in the second study. Here, the participants were asked to use their middle finger to swipe and to start and end each trial at the central cross. A second adjustment was the simultaneously presentation of the stimuli and the target area.

The results of both studies showed us that negative valanced stimuli have a longer time period and a slower speed to swipe the images towards them, compared to the behaviour of swiping away from the self and the positive valanced stimuli (i.e. participants are faster in swiping positive pictures towards them). Study 1 showed that the speed of swiping positive pictures was more or less the same, independent of the swipe direction, whereas the negative pictures were swiped faster, further and with a higher pressure when the swipe direction was away from themselves. Study 2 revealed that the speed of swiping away from the self was seen to be more or less the same for both positive as negative valanced stimuli, but the reaction time was faster when participants were asked to react to positive images. This all taken together, Kraus stated that both the swipe speed as the swipe time have great potential to be promising indicators of AA tendencies.

Kraus (2014) herself stated that future research is needed in order to fully develop this promising implicit measure. Multiple future research paths were indicated by Kraus (2014), where the comparison between the implicit measure and an explicit measure is seen as highly valuable. This can be done by a correlational approach and would be very useful in order to further examine convergent and discriminant validity. Moreover, the examination of when and why AA tendencies, which exist as a result of an experimental manipulation, could translate into consumption behaviour is a second interesting future research path.

Under the guidance of professor Slabbinck, Toon Van Dooren- Van Overmeire’s master dissertation (2016) aimed to investigate whether or not the SwAAP could be used to assess approach-avoidance tendencies within consumer research. Unfortunately, no compatible effects were found. According to

Toon Van Dooren- Van Overmeire, two possible causes could help explaining the missing compatible effects, namely the experimental manipulation and the SwAAP procedure itself. In the upper case, it could be possible that the explicit attitude but not the implicit attitude was changed. This could be due to the fact that these are controlled by two different systems and could therefore imply that the implicit and explicit attitudes towards an object can differ from each other (Sloman, 1996). Another valid explanation could be that the implicit attitudes towards the stimuli are considered too weak and no difference could be measured on implicit level. However, this is very unlikely in this case due to the fact that the stimuli have a strong attitude when considering approach-avoidance tendencies (Field, Caren, Fernie, & De Houwer, 2011; Maison, Greenwald, & Bruin, 2001). A more plausible explanation is the latter, which states that the SwAAP itself is causing the problems. Toon Van Dooren- Van Overmeire indicated the possibility that the SwAAP was not capable of measuring the approach- avoidance tendencies, and proposed to make some adjustments. As Inquisit is not capable to record the swipe pressure, a proposition was made to use a different program, because Kraus (2014) indicated that the pressure is considered to be one of the five important indicators. Due to the fact that the participants were standing, instead of seated as in the experiment of Kraus (2014), the distance between the participant was greater in Toon Van Dooren- Van Overmeire’s investigation. Another difference is the use of a triangle in Kraus (2014), that was replaced by a rectangle in order to create unwanted AA-motions. However, using the triangle could emphasise the approach and avoidance action when swiping the stimuli respectively towards or away from itself. A trade-off is therefore in place. Further development of the SwAAP is thus in order.

The aim of this master dissertation is in twofold. As no results of compatible effects came out of the previously investigation, taking a step back and returning back to basic is recommended. The replication of previously executed research (i.e. the original SwAAP) is the first contribution to this master dissertation, and aims to see whether or not the same compatible effect will be found. The tablet is positioned in two ways, therefore two conditions can be distinguished, namely a vertical (i.e. meaning that the tablet lays on the table) and an horizontal position (i.e. where the tablet uses a support such that the screen is positioned perpendicularly on the table). The second contribution of this master dissertation is to investigate to what extent the SwAAP can be applied in the research of consumers. Taken these two purposes into consideration, the general research question is as follows:

“Can the Swipe Approach-Avoidance procedure be used to measure approach- and avoidance motivations and to predict consumer behaviour?”

3.2. Hypotheses As the aim of this master dissertation is to replicate the SwAAP procedure of Kraus’s second study executed in 2014, it is expected to find the compatibility approach-avoidance effect. This effect assumes that negative stimuli cause an avoidance tendency, whereas positive stimulus have the tendency on participants to provoke an approach motivation. Based upon this compatibility effect, two hypotheses can be formed that will be investigated:

H1: Pictures with a positive valence will be swiped faster towards the participants than away from the participant.

H2: Pictures with a negative valence will be swiped faster away from the participants than towards the participant.

In addition to the replication of the second study of Kraus, a condition concerning the different positioning of the tablet is added. In multiple studies that use the AAT, the participant always sits in front of a computer. The manikin task makes use of a response key on a keyboard, whereas in the joystick task the participant is asked to either pull or push the joystick. In this positioning, the tendency to approach positive valanced stimuli and to avoid negative valanced stimuli is proven multiple times. But what if the positioning of the tablet would differ from this classic design? If the tablet is positioned horizontal (i.e. positioned perpendicular on the table), is the swiping down (up) movement still related to approaching (avoidance)? Or is the swiping movement of a participant with an abstract mindset induction to the upper part of the tablet stronger associated with good than when compared to the concrete mindset inducted participant? As the embodied cognition theory states, different kind of body movements lead to different input for the cognitions. From this state of view, it is believed that the vertical position of the table (i.e. tablet laying on the table) will be more sensitive to the approach- avoidance tendencies. Meaning that the (in)compatibility effect will be stronger presented in the vertical position compared to the horizontal positioning of the tablet. The horizontal positioning of the tablet may, according to the embodied cognition theory, be more sensitive to the construal level theory and less to the approach-avoidance tendencies. Following hypotheses can be formed based on this reasoning:

H3: The approach-avoidance tendencies will be stronger represented in the vertical positioning of the tablet in comparison with the horizontal positioning

H4: The construal level theory will be more represented in the horizontal positioning compared to the vertical positioning, meaning that an upward swipe within the abstract mindset induction will be stronger associated with ‘good’ compared to the concrete mindset induction.

It was opted to follow and investigate two future research suggestions of Kraus (2014). The first suggestion aims to find a correlation between the explicit and the implicit measurement. Research suggests that the SwAAP assesses the positive and negative affect. In order to investigate this

correlation, an explicit measurement that is able to assess the same thing must be used. The positive and negative affect schedules, abbreviated as PANAS scales, are able to assess the same effect as the SwAAP. These scales consist out of two 10-items scales that assess the positive and negative affect of the participants. A fifth hypothesis can therefore be formulated.

H5: Implicit attitudes measured by the SwAAP will correlate with the explicit measurement of the attitudes.

The second suggestion of Kraus (2014) is to incorporate the consumer behaviour into this measurement and to test the predictive validity of the SwAAP. Therefore, an investigation will be performed to see whether or not the manipulation of the construal level together with the created affect by the SwAAP could influence the healthiness decisions of the consumer. Research indicates that health is one of the most important motives to make food choices (Steptoe, Pollard, & Wardle, 1995; Verbeke, 2008). Therefore food choices are used to indicate whether or not these two factors have a significant influence on the health choices of consumers.

To investigate the link between construal level and healthy food choices, a small review of the literature about the value and meaning of health in the context of food is given. Four major flows can be distinguished that are of great importance and should be elaborated in order to clarify our hypothesis. The first stream of research focused on the identification of motives related to food that could influence the consumers when buying or consuming food. In order to determine the different motives, a lot of researchers used the Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ), which split the food choice into nine dimensions, namely: ethical concerns, familiarity, weight control, price, natural content, sensory appeal, health mood and convenience. This stream of research thus suggest that every time the consumers want to make a food choice a trade-off must be made between these different dimensions (Honkanen & Frewer, 2009; Lusk & Briggeman, 2009; Magnusson, Arvola, Hursti, Åberg, & Sjödén, 2003; Steptoe et al., 1995; Wandel & Bugge, 1997).

A second stream focussed on the differences between individuals in how much they value healthy eating. In order to capture individual concerns about food and health-related topics, the researchers used measurements such as health involvement, involvement in healthy eating or health concerns. In general, all the researchers came to the same conclusion: health in food choices is valued and the individual differences can be explained by the extent to which participants think that health is important (Bower, Saadat, & Whitten, 2003; Kähkönen, Tuorila, & Lawless, 1997; Olsen, 2003; Sun, 2008; Tudoran, Olsen, & Dopico, 2009).

Interpretation of the concept of health is a third important part of the literature, and this research tried to understand the value of health to consumers. It was found that different interpretations of health are used

by individuals (e.g. the value health means the absence of diseases to one person whereas a broader state of mental, physical and social well-being is the definition for health to another person). Mostly, these different interpretations differ on the level of specifications and can be either more abstract or more concrete (Geeroms, Verbeke, & Van Kenhove, 2008; Hughner & Kleine, 2004; Lindholm, 1997; Miller & Iris, 2002).

The last stream of literature builded further on the different levels of specification but now within the context of healthy eating. Within this fourth research stream, it can be notified that the concept of healthy eating can either be discussed by using proportions of protein, vegetables, grains and carbohydrates. By doing so, the level of specificity is varying (Anne & Willetts, 1996; Margetts, Martinez, Saba, Holm, & Kearney, 1997; Ristovski-Slijepcevic, Chapman, & Beagan, 2008; Santich, 1994).

The third and fourth stream of the literature already indicated that different levels of specification are used (i.e. concrete or specific vs. abstract or general). These different levels are also at the basis of the construal level theory (CLT). As previously stated an object, event or activity (e.g. eating) can be either seen as distant or as close. The distinction in distance can be made on the four dimensions time, space, probability or social distance as elaborated within section 2.4.2.. A lower construal level is considered to be more concrete, unstructured, contextualised and describes secondary features of an object. On the contrary, the higher construal level is seen as more abstract, schematic, decontextualized and describes primarily features (i.e. the essence). It is our goal to assess whether the CLT principles can be applied in the context of healthy eating, which is already a topic within the research (Ronteltap, Sijtsema, Dagevos, & de Winter, 2012; Schmeichel, Vohs, & Duke, 2011). Within this research it was assumed that the abstract construal level (high construal level) would lead to healthier choices when compared to the concrete construal level (low construal level). The focus groups, used in the study of Ronteltap, Sijtsema, Dagevos and de Winter (2012), provided the evidence that there were different levels for consumers interpretations of healthy eating. In these focus groups, the participants used terms that were specifically related to the food itself to assess the healthiness of the foods. Other important variables used to assess the healthiness were the eating pattern and other lifestyle elements. These discoveries contribute to the indication that the levels of abstraction, used to assess the healthiness of food, is done by the use of very specific food products and their nutrients to diet and lifestyle related issues (i.e. more general way to describe them).

Instead, going back to the nature of approach and avoidance can help us to investigate the link between approach and avoidance behaviour and their eating behaviour (i.e. healthiness of the eating behaviour). As an avoidance orientation is focused on getting away from undesired objects and approach orientation is the movement towards desirable object, this reasoning can easily be applied to the planning of eating behaviours (Elliot & Covington, 2001; Otis & Pelletier, 2008). The example given by Otis and Pelletier

(2008) gives a clarification. The goal of trying to eat healthier can be either seen in the context of approach or in the avoidance context. The upper will be translated in behaviour such as drinking more water or trying to eat more vegetables, whereas the latter will probably be described in actions such as no more French fries or trying not to eat big portions. Other research suggested that on the one hand controlled regulation for eating behaviour can be linked with dysfunctional eating behaviour thus meaning unhealthy decision regarding food choices. On the other hand autonomous regulation for eating behaviours is related with the healthy eating behaviour (Pelletier & Dion, 2007; Pelletier, Dion, Slovinec-D’Angelo, & Reid, 2004; Williams, Grow, Freedman, Ryan, & Deci, 1996). Taking together that Otis and Pelletier have assumed and proven that avoidance food planning explains the dysfunctional eating behaviour, whereas the approach food planning could be the reason for the effect of autonomous regulation (healthy eating behaviour) (Otis & Pelletier, 2008).

Based upon these links, that state that both the approach behaviour and the abstract mindset will lead to a greater tendency to eat or buy healthy food, a hypothesis that combines these two thoughts can be formed:

H6: If the SwAAP produces valid AA measures, the SwAAP scores should reveal that approach tendencies together with an abstract mindset will show a bias for eating healthy food.

Important to state, is that combination of the different groups (i.e. abstract- approach tendency or concrete – approach tendency), will also show a bias for eating healthy. This is because one of the two groups/ conditions that leads to healthy behaviour is presented. The greatest tendency, however, should come from the combination concrete mindset together with an approach tendency.

3.3. Design

3.3.1. General description of the design 3.3.1.1. Participants 108 UGent students participated in this study in exchange for a credit for the course ‘Market research’. Table 1 gives a clear overview of the different demographics of the participants. The participants entered the research laboratory in groups of six persons, where the time slot was determined in advance by registering on the SONA site. When entering the room, they randomly positioned themselves to one of the six computers that were separated from other participants and other visual stimuli by the use of screens. Before the different tasks appeared on the screen, a permission form was read. One session had a duration of approximately 50 minutes.

Female vs. male Female Male 62 46 Left- vs. right-handed Left-handed Right-handed 14 94 Familiarity with tablet Yes No 104 4 Familiarity with swiping Yes No 106 2 Age Min Max 17 28 Length (cm) Min Max 156 199 Visual sight (%) Min Max 10 100 Table 1: Information of participants

3.3.1.2. Materials and apparatus The pictures that served as stimuli for the SwAAP, were taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The selection procedure was the same as Kraus (2014). The mean valence of the set of pictures thus differed (i.e. 1,46 for negative and 7,12 for positive pictures), while the mean arousal of both the negative and positive pictures was noted on 4,19. The participants completed the SwAAP on a Dell 21.5” touch- monitor (54,6 cm), with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and a reaction time of 25ms (GtG).

3.3.1.3. General procedure This research design consists out of five phases, which will be elaborated in detail. The first phase is a manipulation of the construal level, where either a high- or low construal level is activated. This activation of a particular mindset is done by filling out a questionnaire. The second phase is the execution of the SwAAP, that preceded a small questionnaire and specific instruction concerning the positioning

of the screen. In the third phase, the explicit measurement of the positive or negative affect is taken. The investigation of the consumer behaviour is done in the fourth phase, where the fifth phase consist of both the BIS/BAS and BIF questionnaire. Other general information is also taken in this fifth phase.

3.3.2. Phase 1: Experimental manipulation

In order to manipulate the construal level of the participant, an experimental manipulation was performed in such a way that either an abstract or concrete mindset condition was appointed to the participant (i.e. high or low construal level) (Freitas, Gollwitzer, & Trope, 2004). In the upper case, participants have to consider why they would engage in an activity such as creating and maintaining good personal relationships and indicate the higher-level goals served by this activity. Participants are thus thinking increasingly abstractly about the activity. Whereas in the latter, participants are requested to think about how they would create and maintain good personal relationships and thus give lower- level activities on how to achieve it. The participants are therefore thinking increasingly concretely about this activity. Figure 94 illustrates the two different mindsets (abstract vs concrete) together with an example obtained from Freitas, Gollwitzer and Trope (2004) (i.e. attaining life happiness for the concrete mindset (low construal level) and participating in a psychology experiment for the abstract mindset condition (high construal level)). On the right side of the figure, the concept that was used in our experiment is shown.

Figure 9: Experimental manipulation (abstract and concrete mindset induction)

4 (Freitas et al., 2004)

3.3.2.1. Pretest A pretest to test this procedure together with the BIF was conducted. This BIF tries to assess the individual differences in level of personal agency and consists out of 25 different activities, where each activity is described by two alternative identities (i.e. a high and low level). After the manipulation, the respondents were asked to choose the description that they thought described the activity the best. The BIF score was calculated based upon the amount of high level answers, and a significant difference was expected between the means of the low and high construal level group (Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). Unfortunately, the pretest was not able to replicate the success that was already achieved multiple times in the literature. As Dutch is considered to be the mother tongue of the participants, the English questionnaire was considered to be the culprit. Therefore both the manipulation as the BIF are transalted in order to avoid the language barrier. The BIF is included in the appendix, table b.

3.3.2.2. Procedure The participants received at random one of the two versions of the mindset manipulation. Participants within the concrete condition (low level) thus had to think about how they can create and maintain good personal relationships, while the participants in the abstract condition (high level) had to think why they would create and maintain good personal relationships.

When participants were assigned the abstract condition, they were asked why they would create and try to maintain good personal relationships. To introduce these questions, the participants first were assigned to read a passage, which describes why any person in particular wants to complete a day-today action such as the participation in a psychology experiment. The passage, acquired from the researchers Freitas, Gollwitzer and Trope (2004), reads as follows: “For everything we do, there always is a reason why we do it. Moreover, we often can trace the causes of our behaviour back to broad life-goals that we have. For example, you currently are participating in a psychology experiment. Why are you doing this? Perhaps to satisfy a course requirement. Why are you satisfying the course requirement? Perhaps to pass a psychology course. Why pass the course? Perhaps because you want to earn a college degree. Why earn a college degree? Maybe because you want to find a good job, or because you want to educate yourself. And perhaps you wish to educate yourself or find a good job because you feel that doing so can bring you happiness in life. Research suggests that engaging in thought exercises like that above, in which one thinks about how one’s actions relate to one’s ultimate life goals, can improve people’s life satisfaction. In this experiment, we are testing such a technique. This thought exercise is intended to focus your attention on why you do the things you do. For this thought exercise, please consider the following activity: ‘create and maintain good personal relationships.’ “

Afterwards, the participants completing the abstract condition, were asked why creating and maintaining good personal relationships could assist in meeting important life goals. In total, participants should give three ways. Under each goal they gave, the question ‘‘How much will creating and maintaining good personal relationships help you to meet this important goal?’’ needs to be filled in using a 5 point scale, where the number 1 stands for a little while the number 5 equals very, very much. If the participants have answered this questions for each way, they completed the diagram (see figure 9) that shows how they could meet their important life goals and by doing so create and maintain good personal relationships.

When participants are assigned the concrete mindset condition, they were asked to read a passage, which focusses the attention of the participants on how they are able to find happiness within life (by participating in a psychology experiment). The passage, acquired from the researchers Freitas, Gollwitzer and Trope (2004), that the participant were asked to read is the one in below:

“For everything we do, there always is a process of how we do it. Moreover, we often can follow our broad life-goals down to our very specific behaviours. For example, like most people, you probably hope to find happiness in life. How can you do this? Perhaps finding a good job, or being educated, can help. How can you do these things? Perhaps by earning a college degree. How do you earn a college degree? By satisfying course requirements. How do you satisfy course requirements? In some cases, such as today, you participate in a psychology experiment. Research suggests that engaging in thought exercise like that above, in which one thinks about how one’s ultimate life goals can be expressed through specific actions, can improve people’s life satisfaction. In this experiment, we are testing such a technique. This thought exercise is intended to focus your attention on how you do the things you do. For this thought exercise, please consider the following activity: ‘creating and maintaining good personal relationships.’”

Afterwards, the participants completing the concrete mindset condition, are asked to write down three means by which they could create and maintain good personal relationships. In total, participants should give three means where under each means they gave, the question ‘‘How much will engaging in this activity help you to create and maintain good personal relationships?’’ needs to be filled in using a 5 point scale, where the number 1 stands for a little while the number 5 equals very, very much. If the participants have answered this questions for each of their own means, they must complete the diagram (see figure 9), that shows how they could create and maintain good personal relationships.

3.3.3. Phase 2: Implicit measurement of the attitudes (SwAAP)

As previously stated, the same procedure as the one used in study 2 by Kraus (2004) was used to measure the implicit attitudes. Before the start of the SwAAP, the participants filled in a small questionnaire that asks for following things: gender, age, length, dominant hand, visual sight and their familiarity with a tablet and its swipe-movements. Professor Slabbinck developed the measurement procedure in Inquisit and this procedure was executed on the Dell-monitor previously specified.

3.3.3.1. Stimuli The pictures (used as stimuli) were selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The IAPS is a database of standardized pictures for studying emotion or attention. These pictures are available for non-profit organisations that perform research (P.J. Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1997).

Many researchers in the past have tried to create a rating system for the stimuli within the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and thereby they often assumed that an increase in the positivity simultaneously equals a decrease in the negativity, and vice versa (Ito et al., 1998). The assessment of the pictures can be done in multiple ways. A first alternative is to use the self-assessment manikin (SAM), which tries to measure the dimensions of valence, arousal and dominance. The assessment is done using three rows of five figures, where each row represents a dimension. The dimension of valence is measured using a smiling figure towards a frowning figure. The second dimension, the arousal dimension, is measured using a wide-eyed figure towards a rather sleepy and a calm figure. The last dimension is dominance were the size in the figure differs. The second method is to use Bivariate Evaluation and Ambivalence Measures (BEAMs), which tries to assess the different dimensions by using different adjectives (Ito et al., 1998).

Similarity between the two rating systems can be found. The rating system of Libkuman (2007)was used, since this rating is the most recent one. When selecting the pictures, the mean arousal of both the negative and positive pictures are equal (M = 4.19), where the mean in the valence differs (M positive: 1.46 ; M negative: 7.12 ). In the list of Libkuman (2007) the mean valence goes from 1 to 8.16. The order of this variable is an indication for the amount of positivity/ negativity, where a 1 indicates a maximum of negativity and a 9 stands for maximum of positivity. Table a in appendix A gives a clear overview of the chosen stimuli.

3.3.3.2. Design The SwAAP procedure itself consisted out of two main parts, namely the practise trials (1) and the test trials (2). In the upper, the practise trials, eight neutral pictures of the IAPS were used in order to become familiar with both the compatible as the incompatible task. Results of the practise trials were ignored. The latter, the test trials, consisted out of 28 positive and 28 negative pictures.

The participants participate at a 2x2 factorial and within-subject design. Both the swipe direction and the stimulus have the possibility to have two different meanings. The swipe direction can either be towards the top or the bottom, whereas the stimuli can either have a positive or negative valence. Both the pictures and the target area appear together randomized on the tablet screen. Compatible and incompatible tasks are thus created at random. A compatible trial is described as the situation where a positive picture is swiped toward or when a negative picture is swiped away from the self. In contrast, an incompatible trial is the situation where the participants swipes a positive picture away from the self, or when a negative picture is swiped toward itself by the participant.

Our SwAAP contains four important outcome variables, which differs from the five outcome variables used within the original procedure by Kraus (2014). Unfortunately, Inquisit is unable to measure the pressure of the swipe movement and therefore only the response time, swipe time, swipe distance and the swipe speed remain as measures.

3.3.3.3. Procedure The experiment consisted out of two different conditions. The first group had the touch screen positioned in front of him at a certain height (horizontal position), while the other group had the touch screen positioned in front of them, lying on a table (vertical condition). Depending on the condition, the start instruction slightly differed.

When participants started the swipe approach-avoidance task, they got instruction according to their condition. If the touchscreen was positioned vertically on the table (i.e. tablet lays on the table), the participant was asked to stand in front of the tablet and was asked to not let the arm rest on the table. The group which represented the horizontal condition (i.e. tablet perpendicular on the table) was asked to sit directly in front of the tablet (e.g. 30 cm between the self and the screen). The other instructions were the same for both the conditions and explained the procedure. The goal of the participant was to swipe the image to the indicated gray target area as quickly as possible. As it is important that all the swipe-movements were done in the same way, participants were instructed to use the index finger of their dominant hand with a fixed wrist, while the other fingers are closed. A cross appeared in the middle of the screen where the index finger should be positioned before each swipe-movement and should return to after each swipe-movement. Together with the central cross, an instruction was shown on the screen which went as follows: “Hold your finger just above the cross, but do not touch it. Swipe the image to the gray rectangle.”

After 2500ms the image together with the gray target area replaced the central cross. The appearance of the both the image and the target area triggered the participant to swipe the picture towards the indicated target area. The swipe was considered to be correct if the image was swiped in the right direction (i.e.

the indicated gray target area). If that was the case, the cross in the middle of the screen appeared again and everything started all over again.

3.3.4. Phase 3: Explicit measurement of the attitudes (PANAS scales)

The positive and negative affect schedules (PANAS) scales consist out of two 10-items scales that assess the positive and negative affect of the participants. Concretely, the questionnaire consist of 20 words that describe either a feeling or an emotion. The participant was asked to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale how he or she feels at this moment. The PANAS scales were incorporated in the explicit measurement phase to assess the positive and negative affect and to compare it with the outcome of the SwAAP. The PANAS scales are developed by Watson, Clark and Tellegen (1988) in order to create adequate scale with a high validity. Moreover, compared to lengthier measures of the underlying mood factors, the PANAS scales show a high discriminant and convergent correlations and are internally consistent. The positive affect (PA) indicates the degree of enthusiasm, activeness and alert. A high energy level together with a full concentration level and pleasurable engagement is represented in a high positive affect. On the contrary, a low level of PA is characterized by lethargy and sadness. The negative affect (NA) represents the amount of unpleasable engagement and distress that can go together with the following feelings: guilt, fear, nervousness, anger, contempt and disgust. When the participant is in a state of serenity and calmness, he or she represents a low negative affect (NA) (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). The PANAS scales are included in the appendix, table c.

3.3.5. Phase 4: Behaviour measurements

3.3.5.1. Construal level and healthy choices As previously stated, the participants with a high construal level are expected to be more likely to choose for healthy choices in comparison to the participants with a low construal level. Research has investigated whether or not different construal levels equals different interpretations of healthy eating. Ronteltap, Sijtsema, Dagevos and De Winter (2012) tried to assess the consumers interpretation of healthy eating with the use of the construal level theory insights. They influenced the mindset of the participants by introducing them different texts, where the level of abstraction differed. Afterwards they were asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale the healthiness of different products, how difficult it is to make these judgements and to assess the attractiveness of each product (Ronteltap et al., 2012). In the end the participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire assessing the health consciousness on a 7- point Likert scale as well (Roininen, Lähteenmäki, & Tuorila, 1999).

As the mindset of the participants is already manipulated the first phase of the second study can be skipped (Ronteltap et al., 2012). The products to be assessed on their healthiness (and the difficulty to make this judgement) and their attractiveness are chocolate, chips and an apple. This is a selection of products of which is believed that the healthiness differs. Whereas the chocolate can be seen as

ambiguous, the apple is generally seen as healthy whereas the chips are considered to be unhealthy. The questionnaire drawn up to investigate this link was more or less the same than the one used in the research and can be found in the appendix, table d, e, f and g.

3.3.5.2. Approach-avoidance and healthy choices The goal of eating healthier can be achieved by motivations that can be situated under an approach manner (e.g. drinking more water and eating more vegetables). Moreover, the healthy choices in can also be placed in an avoidance manner (e.g. the avoidance of fast food). Researchers Otis and Pelletier (2008) found it worthwhile to investigate the approach and avoidance distinction at food planning level. In their study 1, they developed the Planning of Eating Behaviours Scale (PEBS) and these scales were used to assess the link between approach and avoidance behaviour and healthy choices. The PEBS has two subscales that assess the approach and avoidance food planning and contains in total includes 12 items. The PEBS are statements that are assessed on a 7-point Likert scale, that ranges from never (1) to always (7) (Otis & Pelletier, 2008). These PEBS statements are incorporated in the appendix, table h.

3.3.6. Phase 5: Control questions

The fifth phase consists out of four main parts. The first part asks for the demographical information of the participant (age, length, sex). The second part of questions assesses the variables that are important for the SwAAP task, namely visibility, hand dominance, familiarity with tablet and swiping. BIS/BAS scales are incorporated in the questionnaire as third main part and tries to assess the degree of approach avoidance of the participants (Smits & Boeck, 2006) The fourth part is the behavioural identification form, and is included to measure the difference between the two groups used in the manipulation of the construal level. The questionnaires concerning the BIF and BIS/BAS are incorporated in the appendix (table b, i).

4. Results 4.1. Data In order to perform different tests to check the hypotheses, different values were created that represent the obtained data. The name of the variable will be used within this section to refer to the obtained data. In order to gain a full understanding, these different variables are explained in appendix B (table j). The data obtained for the posvsneg, positphotos and negatphotos were supplied by professor Slabbinck, who retrieved them from the program Inquisit. These variables are somewhat harder to interpret, therefore they will be explained briefly. The score of both the positive- and negative pictures (i.e. positphotos and 푚푒푎푛 푣푒푙표푐𝑖푡푦 푑표푤푛푤푎푟푑푠−푚푒푎푛 푣푒푙표푐𝑖푡푦 푢푝푤푎푟푑푠 negatphotos) are calculated as follows: . The division by 푠푡.푑푒푣𝑖푎푡𝑖표푛 푚푒푎푛 푣푒푙표푐𝑖푡푦 the standard deviation of the average speed of the swipe movements gives a superior, more pure variable with a better significance value. The variable posvsneg is calculated by reducing the score of the positphotos with the score of negatphotos (i.e. 푃표푠푣푠푁푒𝑔 = 푃표푠𝑖푡푝ℎ표푡표푠 − 푁푒𝑔푎푡푝ℎ표푡표푠). By taking the difference between these two observations, a sample of interval-scaled measurements is created to which the dependency discussion no longer applies. The other data were retrieved from Qualtrics and hold either the value that corresponds to the Likert scale or includes information regarding the participant (e.g. gender, age, length, …). These variables are easy to interpret and do not need further clarification as the description given in the appendix. Unfortunately, the data concerning the PANAS scales was not collected and therefore, the H5 (i.e. correlation between explicit measurement and the SwAAP) cannot be discussed. Figures or tables included in the appendix are referred to by the use of letters, whereas the figures within the text obtain a number. Output of SPSS that is needed in order to fully understand the interpretations of the hypothesis are included in the text. In contrast, output of SPSS that is considered as extra information is included in appendix B (e.g. assumption related output).

4.2. Data clearing

4.2.1. Normality

In order to detect possible outliers, an investigation to see whether or not the gathered data concerning the SwAAP is normally distributed is needed. Both the Kolmogorov –Smirnov and the Shapiro –Wilk test are performed on the received data. The SPSS outputs concerning this investigation is included in appendix B, figure a. The significance value of the different tests tells you whether the data is statistically significant different from a normal distribution. Table 2 gives a clear overview of all the relevant values concerning the normality tests. As all the p-values in both the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (0.2; 0.2; 0.2) and the Shapiro-Wilk test (0.826; 0.068; 0.954) are greater than the significance level α= 0.05. Therefore the null hypothesis (H0), which states that the data is normally distributed, can be accepted.

Kolmogorov- Smirnov Shapiro- Wilk Statistic Significance Statistic Significance Posvsneg 0.038 0.200 0.993 0.826 Positphotos 0.055 0.200 0.978 0.068 Negatphotos 0.048 0.200 0.995 0.954 Table 2: SPSS values concerning normality hypothesis

4.2.2. Outliers

In order to see whether or not there are outliers presented in the data, the theory of John Tukey is followed. He visualised the spreading of the data using a boxplot. Five important numbers are presented in the boxplot, namely the minimum, first quartile, median, third quartile and maximum (i.e. represented by each line, starting at the bottom). Data that indicates that the swipe is done very slowly will be removed. This analyses is performed on the three SwAAP related variables, namely positphotos, negatphotos and posvsneg which are respectively displayed in figure 10, 11 and 12.

Figure 10: Boxplot positphotos Figure 11: Boxplot negatphotos Figure 12: Boxplot posvsneg

Two cases of possible outliers can be detected in the positphotos, indicated by a simple circle in the bottom of the diagram. This means that for the possible outliers in the left boxplot, the velocity of the swipe toward the bottom is either very slow or the velocity of the swipe toward the upper part of the screen is very fast done. The data of both cases (i.e. case 10 and 102) is removed and therefore only 106 observations will be used in the following analyses. Once again, the hypothesis of the normality is checked and retained after the outliers are removed (see table 3). The p-values of both the Kolmogorov- Smirnov (0.2; 0.2; 0.2) and the Shapiro-Wilk test (0.906; 0.138; 0.960) are all greater than the significance value α= 0.05. The output of SPSS is included in figure b in appendix B.

Kolmogorov- Smirnov Shapiro- Wilk Statistic Significance Statistic Significance Posvsneg 0.036 0.200 0.994 0.906 Positphotos 0.062 0.200 0.981 0.138 Negatphotos 0.047 0.200 0.995 0.960 Table 3: SPSS values concerning normality hypothesis (without outliers)

4.3. Results concerning H1 and H2 Based upon the compatibility effect described in the literature, two hypothesis were formed. The first one aims to investigate whether or not the positive valanced pictures will be swiped faster to the participants in comparison to swiping away from the participant. The second one investigates whether negative valanced pictures will be swiped faster away from the participants than towards the participant. Based upon the scores, calculated for both positive and negative pictures, the swipe is considered to be faster downward compared to the upward swipe movement if the value of the variable is positive. The value of the variable positphotos is thus expected to be positive in the case of positive valanced pictures, as a smaller speed will be notified when swiping upwards. Same reasoning can be applied to the second hypothesis, where it is expected that the value of the variable negatphotos will be negative in case of negative valanced pictures, as the speed of swiping upwards will be greater than swiping downwards. Based upon our hypothesis, the means of positphotos and negatphotos are expected to be significant different from zero, where the mean of the variable positphotos should be positive and the mean of the variable negatphotos should be negative. Moreover, a significant difference between the two means of the variables positphotos and negatphotos is expected.

4.3.1. General results concerning compatibility effect

Thinking back to Kraus’s research in 2014, the participants were standing up while swiping the images on the tablet while the tablet was laying on the table. Within our experiment, there are two different positions of the tablet (i.e. horizontal and vertical). The vertical positioning of the tablet therefore reflects the original Kraus experiment. Due to these two different conditions, the data will be split up. First an investigation of all the data (i.e. data of both the horizontal as the vertical position) will be performed. Secondly, both the data of the horizontal and vertical positioning will be studied separate.

The compatibility effect can be found within our data if the mean of the variable positphotos is considered to be positive and the value of variable negatphotos is negative. A one sample t- test is performed, which is used within the statistic to test the average of a sample against the standard that is expected for a particular test. By doing so, it can be checked whether the sample scores are higher or lower than a norm population. Here this test value will be zero and the dependent variables are positphotos and negatphotos. To check whether or not a significant difference can be found between the two means of these variables, a paired sample t-test is performed. Four assumptions must be checked before executing these different t-tests. The first assumption is that the dependent variable must be measured on a continuous scale, which is the case in our experiment. The second assumption concerns the observations which should be independent of one another. This is the case within our data. The third assumption indicates that no significant outliers can be presented. The data was screened and outliers were removed earlier, so this assumption is fulfilled. The fourth assumption explains that the data should

follow a normal distribution. This is already checked within the section 4.2. data clearing (table 2 and

3). Therefore the H0 is retained, stating that the data follows a normal distribution.

All the important values obtained while performing the statistical analyses are presented in tables 4 and 5. This way there is no need to switch between appendix and text. If more information is wanted, the reader is referred to the appendix for the full available output of SPSS. Figures c, e and g contain the different one sample t-test, which investigates whether or not the mean values are significant different from 0. The figures d, f and h investigate whether or not the difference between the two means are statistical significant different from each other.

All observations (n=106) Horizontal condition (n=56) Vertical condition (n=50) Positphotos Negatphotos Positphotos Negatphotos Positphotos Negatphotos M 0.111132 0.070007 0.215323 0.152233 -0.005562 -0.022085 SD 0.466304 0.442287 0.434311 0.354228 0.477405 0.511819 T statistic 2.454 1.630 3.710 3.216 -0.082 -0.305 p-value 0.016 0.106 0.000 0.002 0.935 0.762

H0/H1 H1 H0 H1 H1 H0 H0

Table 4: Overview SPSS values (one sample t-tests)

All observations Horizontal condition Vertical condition M 0.041124 0.063090 0.016523 SD 0.538892 0.438915 0.636310 T statistic 0.786 1.076 0.184 p-value 0.434 0.287 0.855

Table 5: Overview SPSS values (paired sample t-tests)

Taking these values from the one sample t-test into account (table 4), a small difference between the means can be notified in all three cases. In the first and second case (i.e. all observations and horizontal condition) the means of both positphotos and negatphotos have a positive value. In the third case, both the mean values are negative. The hypothesis stated that the mean of positphotos should obtain a positive value, whereas the mean of negatphotos is expected to be negative. If the value is significant statistical different from the test value (=0) and the mean is considered to be positive, the conclusion can be made that the value can be considered as positive. Same reasoning can be applied when considering a negative mean value.

In the first case, that includes all the observations, a t-statistic of 2.454 and 1.630 can be notified respectively for positphotos and negatphotos. Together with these values, a p-value of 0.016 and 0.106

is found. As the t statistic corresponding with the positphotos (2.454) is greater than the critical value of 1.98281527 and the p-value (0.016) is smaller than the significance value of α=0.05, the null hypothesis can therefore be rejected. The H0 states that there is no statistical significant difference between the mean value and the predetermined value of 0. In contrast, the t statistic of negatphotos (1.630) is smaller than the critical value of 1.98281527 and the p-value (0.106) is greater than the significance value of

α=0.05. The H0 is retained, meaning that no difference between the means can be found. In the horizontal position, t-statistics of 3.710 and 3.216 together with the p-values of 0.000 and 0.002 can be notified respectively for positphotos and negatphotos. As the t statistics (3.710; 3.216) are greater than the critical value of 2.00404478 and the p-values (0; 0.002) are smaller than the significance value of α=0.05, the null hypothesis that states that there is no statistical significant difference between the mean value and the predetermined value of 0 can therefore be rejected. In the vertical position, a t-statistic of -0.082 and -0.305 together with the p-values of 0.935 and 0.762 can be notified respectively for positphotos and negatphotos. As the t statistics (-0.082; -0.305) are smaller than the critical value of 2.00957524 and the p-values (0.935; 0.762) are greater than the significance value of α=0.05, the null hypothesis that states that there is no statistical significant difference between the mean value and the predetermined value of 0 can therefore be retained. When looking at the pairwise sample t-tests (table 5), where the positphotos is taken together with the negatphotos variable. The p-values (0.434; 0.287; 0.855) are greater than the significance value of α=0.05 and the t-statistics (0.786; 1.076; 0.184) are smaller than their accompanying critical value of 1.98281527; 2.00404478; 2.00957524 for all observations, horizontal position and vertical position respectively. This indicates that the H0 is retained.

Although in the case of horizontal condition, a statistical significant difference from the test value 0 was found with both the Positphotos and Negatphotos. Unfortunately, the mean of the negative valanced pictures has a positive sign, and thus in general no compatibility effect could be found as a positive score for the negative valanced pictures indicate that swiping downwards is faster done than swiping upwards. Within the compatibility effect literature, the opposite is expected from negative valanced pictures. In the case where all observations are included, only the positphotos mean value was statistically different from the value 0. The negatphotos was not found to be significant different from zero, thus indicating that the score of negatphotos has no negative value. Furthermore, if the conclusion of the pairwise sample t-test is added, there is no significant difference between the two variables, thus no difference between the swiping speed of both positive and negative valanced pictures is found.

As no significant effect is found in the total population, or within the different groups that each have a different positioning of the tablet, further investigation is done in order to test whether or not this effect can be found if the population is divided even further. Four characteristics can divide our overall population in meaningful groups (i.e. female/ male; left-/ right handed; familiarity/ no familiarity with

tablet; familiarity/ no familiarity with swipe movement). When looking at the distribution, a normal distribution is wanted. The normality distribution cannot be investigated for the groups that divide the population according to their familiarity with either the tablet or with the swipe movements and therefore these categories will not be further investigated. The tests of normality are included in appendix B, section 2.3.4. (figure w and x). The other two groups, namely female versus male and left versus right handed, will be investigated in combination with the different tablet positioning, using a MANOVA. The six assumptions will still be investigated first. These are the following: 1. The dependent variable must be measured at a continuous level 2. The two independent variables must be two categoric, independent groups 3. There must be an independence of observations 4. There must be no significant outliers available in the data 5. The depended variable must approximately follow a normal distribution for each combination of the groups of the two independent variables 6. There must be a homogeneity of variances for each combination of the two independent variables The first five assumptions are always fulfilled using this data, where the fifth assumption is checked in the section 4.2.1. The last one will be checked using the Levene’s test.

4.3.2. Difference between female and male

Before executing the MANOVA, the sixth assumption must be checked. The output of SPSS is represented in appendix B, section 2.3.2.. Figure j in appendix B confirms the H0 of homoscedasticity as the p- value is 0.2333 (> α= 0.05) and the F-statistic (1.450) is smaller than the critical value of 2.69372092. The dependent variables are positphotos and negatphotos, whereas the fixed factors are the variables gender and tabletposition. Figure k included in appendix B describes the number of observations of each group and figure l gives us the descriptive statistics. As you can see, the observations are not equal, but differ in small amounts.

Figure 13: Plot of positphotos Figure 14: Plot of negatphotos

Looking at the plots, given in figure 13 and 14, the separate lines represent the two genders. In the positphotos plot, the two gender lines are crossing each other and thus no main effect will be presented for gender as no line is lying above or under the other line. As both the lines have a positive gradient, a main effect for tablet position is expected in the case of positphotos. The difference between the two lines is too small, therefore no interaction effect is expected. In contrast, within the negatphotos plot, one line is laying above the other (male above female), and therefore a main effect is expected for gender. As the lines describing the tablet position have both a different gradient, no main effect will be presented for the variable tablet position. An interaction effect will be presented, as the distance between the two variables differs, which is an indication for an interaction effect. Based upon the distance between the lines that differ from each other, an interaction effect in the case of negatphotos is expected.

Figure m in appendix B gives us the statistical view on the main and/or interaction effect(s). All the important values obtained (e.g. population characteristics and MANOVA values) from performing the

MANOVA are summarized in table 6 and 7. H0 states that there is no statistical significant effect presented. The partial eta squared value (PESV) is defined as the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that is attributable to each effect. In case of tablet position, positphotos, 6.8% of the variance is caused by this tablet effect. All observations (n=106) Horizontal condition (n=56) Vertical condition (n=50) Positphotos Negatphotos Positphotos Negatphotos Positphotos Negatphotos ♀ ♂ ♀ ♂ ♀ ♂ ♀ ♂ ♀ ♂ ♀ ♂ M 0.119722 0.0994873 -0.02013 0.192200 0.187778 0.244909 0.107736 0.200026 0.05804 -0.1186 -0.13601 0.180461 SD 0.454086 0.4873137 0.461791 0.386631 0.471894 0.396797 0.378413 0.3265593 0.435536 0.53839 0.504228 0.472819

Table 6: Overview descriptive statistics

MANOVA Values Critical values Positphotos Negatphotos Tablet position p= 0.008 p= 0.123 α = 0.05 F= 7.417 F= 2.419 F= 2.69372092 PE= 0.068 PE= 0.023 Gender p= 0.511 p= 0.018 α = 0.05 F= 0.436 F= 5.830 F= 2.69372092 PE= 0.004 PE= 0.054 Tablet position*Gender p= 0.200 p= 0.188 α = 0.05 F= 1.666 F= 1.754 F= 2.69372092 PE= 0.016 PE= 0.017 Table 7: Overview SPSS values (MANOVA)

Looking at the positphotos, the p-values (0.511; 0.2) of both the gender and interaction variable (i.e. gender * tablet position) are greater than α= 0.05 and the corresponding F values (0.436; 1.666) are smaller than the critical F value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore retained. For the variable tablet position the reverse applies. The p-value of 0.008 is smaller than α= 0.05 and the F value of 7.417 is greater than the critical F value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore rejected. Looking at the negatphotos variable, the p values (0.123; 0.188) of both the tablet position and the interaction variable (i.e. gender * tablet position) are greater than α= 0.05 and the corresponding F values

(2.419; 1.754) are smaller than the critical F value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore retained. In contrast, the p value of the variable gender (0.018) is smaller than α= 0.05 and the F value (5.830) is greater than its critical value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore rejected. Therefore it can be concluded that in case of studying positphotos a significant effect for the tablet position can be found, whereas for the case of negatphotos a significant effect is found for the gender. In figure n of appendix B, the pairwise comparisons shows us that there is a significant difference between the means of vertical versus horizontal (i.e. -0.030 vs. 0.216) in the positphotos case. When looking at figure o, in appendix B, a significant difference between the means of male versus female (i.e. 0.160 vs. -0.014) can be notified within the negative valanced photos. This is both proven by the p- value of 0.008 and 0.018 that are both smaller as α= 0.05, allowing us to reject the H0 in both cases stating that there is no significant statistically difference between the two means. Important note is that the means given in these figures differ from the one’s in table 6, this is because the amount of observations are not equal in all the different categories. SPSS refactors these means in such a way that the amount of observations is assumed to be equal.

In general, two conclusions can be drawn with regard to the difference between male and female. Within the positphotos category, participants in the vertical position swipe faster away from themselves whereas in the horizontal position the participants perform the swipe towards itself in a faster way compared to swiping away from themselves. Besides, the females within our population tend to swipe the pictures faster away from the self when negative valanced pictures appear, whereas the male participants will swipe these pictures toward themselves.

4.3.3. Difference between right- and left-handed people

Again, the sixth assumption must be checked before executing the MANOVA. The output of SPSS is represented in appendix B, section 2.3.3.. Figure q in appendix B checks the sixth assumption and retains the H0 of homoscedasticity as the p- values (0.104; 0.132) for positphotos and negatphotos respectively are both greater than the α= 0.05 and the corresponding F-statistics (2.106; 1.915) are smaller than the critical value of 2.69372092. The dependent variables are positphotos and negatphotos, whereas the fixed factors are the variables leftorrighthanded and tabletposition.

Figure s included in appendix B describes the number of observations of each group and figure r gives us the descriptive statistics. As you can see, the observations are not equal, but differ in small amounts (table 8).

Figure 15: Plot of positphotos Figure 16: Plot of negatphotos Looking at the plots, given in figure 15 and 16, the separate lines represent either the left or right handed participants. In the positphotos plot, the line describing the left handed participants lays above the right handed line, and therefore a main effect is expected for left or right handed. As the lines describing the tablet position have both a different gradient, no main effect will be presented for the variable tablet position. An interaction effect is expected as the distance between the two variables differs, which is an indication for an interaction effect. In the negatphotos plot, the two lines are crossing each other and thus no main effect will be presented for left or right handed as no line is lying above or under the other line. As both the lines have a positive gradient, a main effect for tablet position is expected in the case of negatphotos. Based upon the distance between the lines that differ from each other, an interaction effect in the case of negatphotos is expected Figure t in appendix B gives us the statistical view on the main and/or interaction effect(s). All the important values obtained (e.g. population characteristics) from performing the MANOVA are

summarized in table 8 and 9. H0 states that there is no statistical significant effect presented. The partial eta squared value (PESV) is defined as the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that is attributable to each effect. In case of tablet position, 0.5% of the variance in the dependent variable is caused by this tablet position effect.

All observations (n=106) Horizontal condition (n=56) Vertical condition (n=50) Positphotos Negatphotos Positphotos Negatphotos Positphotos Negatphotos L R L R L R L R L R L R M 0.3666282 0.0722524 -0.01970 0.083658 0.325959 0.199518 0.173616 0.149178 0.407296 -0.07277 -0.21301 0.008995 SD 0.2542013 0.4796763 0.4253397 0.445468 0.253931 0.454086 0.391756 0.352868 0.270090 0.471643 0.388981 0.526249 Table 8: Overview descriptive statistics

Positphotos Negatphotos Critical values p= 0.455 p= 0.038 α = 0.05 Tablet position F= 0.563 F= 4.422 F= 2.69372092 PESV= 0.005 PESV= 0.042 p= 0.019 p= 0.432 α = 0.05 Left or right handed F= 5.680 F= 0.622 F= 2.69372092 PESV= 0.053 PESV= 0.006 p= 0.168 p= 0.328 α = 0.05 Tablet position* left or right F= 1.931 F= 0.968 F= 2.69372092 handed PESV= 0.019 PESV= 0.009 Table 9: Overview SPSS values (MANOVA)

Looking at the positphotos, the p-values (0.455; 0.168) of both the tablet position and interaction variable (i.e. gender * tablet position) are greater than α= 0.05 and the corresponding F values (0.563;

1.931) are smaller than the critical F value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore retained. For the variable left or right handed the reverse applies. The p-value of 0.019 is smaller than α= 0.05 and the F value of

5.680 is greater than the critical F value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore rejected. Looking at the negatphotos variable, the p-values (0.432; 0.328) of both the left and right handed and the interaction variable (i.e. gender * tablet position) are greater than α= 0.05 and the corresponding F values (2.419; 1.754) are smaller than the critical F value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore retained. In contrast, the p value of the variable tablet position (0.038) is smaller than α= 0.05 and the F value (4.422) is greater than its critical value (2.69372092). The H0 is therefore rejected. Therefore it can be concluded that in case of studying positphotos a significant effect for the variable left or right handed can be found, whereas for the case of negatphotos a significant effect is found for the tablet position. In figure v of appendix B, the pairwise comparisons shows us that there is a significant difference between the means of vertical versus horizontal (i.e. -0.102 vs. 0.161) in the negatphotos case. When looking at figure u, in appendix B, a significant difference between the means of left versus right handed (i.e. 0.367 vs. 0.063) can be notified within the positive valanced photos. This is both proven by the p-value of 0.038 and 0.019 that are both smaller as α= 0.05, allowing us to reject the H0 in both cases stating that there is no significant statistically difference between the two means. Important note is that the means given in these figures differ from the one’s in table 8, this is because the amount of observations are not equal in all the different categories. SPSS refactors these means in such a way that the amount of observations is assumed to be equal.

In general, two conclusions can be drawn. Within the negatphotos category, participants in the vertical position swipe faster away from themselves whereas in the horizontal position the participants perform the swipe towards itself in a faster way compared to swiping away from themselves. Besides the left handed participants swiped the positive valanced pictures faster upwards when comparing the speed with the right handed participants.

4.4. Results concerning H3 and H4 The third and fourth hypothesis assess the influence of the tablet position on the performance of the SwAAP. It was assumed that when the tablet is positioned horizontal (i.e. tablet positioned perpendicular on the table) the construal level theory will have a greater influence on the performance, meaning that an upward swipe within the abstract mindset induction will be stronger associated with good compared to the concrete mindset induction. In the vertical condition (i.e. when tablet lays on the table) the approach and avoidance tendencies will be stronger represented and thus have a greater influence on the performance of the SwAAP. The first part will look whether or not the mindset induction worked, and if the difference in the mindset leads to different answers on the BIF. Afterwards, an analysis is performed in order to investigate the two hypotheses.

4.4.1. Mindset induction

As previously stated in section 3.3.2.1., the pretest was not able to replicate the success achieved in the literature as no significant difference was found between the means of the low and high construal level. Before conducting the analysis to see whether or not there is an influence of the mindset induction and tablet positioning on the performance of the SwAAP, an investigation whether there is a difference between the two means after translating the procedure of the mindset induction is executed (explained in section 3.3.2.2.). The variable BIFScore is used, which contains the total sum of scores linked with the different BIF statements. This is possible as the Cronbach alpha coefficient is 0.78, represented in figure z in appendix B, pointing out that there is a high internal consistency between the different BIF statements.

To investigate whether or not a statistical difference between the two means is presented, an independent T-test is executed and the output is included in appendix B, figure aa. Two assumptions must be investigated, before continuing with the independent t-test, namely the normality of the data and the homogeneity. Figure y in the appendix B contains the test of normality. A normal distribution is not obtained within the abstract mindset group. The H0 is rejected as the p-values of 0.047 and 0.008 are obtained, which are smaller than the significance value of α= 0.05. Looking at the independent samples test (figure aa) the conclusion from the Levene’s test (p-value= 0.226 > α= 0.05) is that there is homogeneity of the variances, and thus the H0 is retained. A non-parametric test (i.e. Mann-Whitney U test) is performed as the normality assumption is violated. The dependent variable is the BIFscore where the grouping variable is abstractvsconcrete.

The ranks part in figure bb give us an overview of the amount of observations and the mean of the concrete and abstract group (i.e. low- and high construal level group).. Furthermore, the Mann-Whitney U test produced following important values, presented in table 10.

Population characteristics Mann-Whitney U test Critical values Concrete Abstract M= 55.98 M= 51.02 p= 0.405 α = 0.05 Sum of ranks= 2967 Sum of ranks= 2704 Mann Whitney U= 1273

Table 10: Overview SPSS values (Mann-Whitney U test)

As the p-value (0.405) obtained is greater than the significance value, the null hypothesis is retained.

This H0 states that there is no significant difference between the two means obtained for each group. It could be that the effect had already been extinguished before the BIF questionnaire was filled in by the participants.

4.4.2. Influence of the mindset induction and the tablet position on the performance of the SwAAP

Two assumptions must be checked before the execution of a two-way ANOVA can take place. As the two way ANOVA test only accepts one dependent variable, the variable posvsneg is used to replace the variables positphotos and negatphotos. By taking the difference between these two observations, a sample of interval-scaled measurements is created to which the dependency discussion no longer applies. The first assumption describes that the dependent variable must follow approximately a normal distribution for each combination of the two independent variables used (i.e. tablet position and concretevsabstract). The normality tests are included in appendix B, figure cc. The significance values (= 0.643; 0.974; 0.568; 0.606) given by the Shapiro- Wilk test are all greater than the α- value of 0.05.

This is an indication that the H0, stating that the data is normally distributed, can be retained. The second assumption concerns the homoscedasticity of the variances for each combination of the two independent variables. The Levene’s test, represented in figure dd, with a F-value of 2.749 and a p-value of 0.047 rejects this homoscedasticity. This can be concluded as the p-value is smaller than the α- value of 0.05 and the F-statistic is greater than the critical value of 2.69372092.

A p-value of 0.047 is very close to your acceptance limit, therefore the rough (log) values often give an indication of the conclusions to be drawn. Since the homoscedasticity depends upon the distance between variances, a boxplot (figure 17) is again made to see whether or not there are outliers present.

Figure 17: Boxplot posvsneg

The value of posvsneg in case 59 can be seen as an outlier within this boxplot. This outlier is removed and a new Levene’s test is performed (figure dd). A p-value of 0.066 and a F value of 2.474 is obtained, which leads to the acceptance of the H0 of homoscedasticity as the p-value is greater than the significance value of α= 0.05 and smaller as the critical value of 2.69372092. The two-way ANOVA is executed based upon the received data after removing the outlier. The dependent variable is posvsneg, whereas the fixed factors are tabletposition and concretevsabstract. Figure ff included in appendix B describe the number of observations of each group and figure ee give us the descriptive statistics.

Figure 18: Boxplot posvsneg

Looking at the given plot (figure 18), the separate lines represent the abstract and concrete mindset induction group. There is no main effect present for the variable of concretevsabstract as neither one of the lines is lying above one another. Moreover, the two lines show no simultaneous increase or decrease, as the gradient differs from sign, which rejects the expectation of a main effect for the tablet position. The two lines cross one another, but it is expected that no interaction effect will be presented, as both the distance between the lines are more or less the same. Figures gg in appendix B give us the statistical view on the main and/or interaction effects. The most important values are summarized in table 11 and 12. The H0 states that there is no statistical significant effect presented.

Concrete Abstract Vertical Horizontal Vertical Horizontal

M 0.02152739 0.02773239 -0.06027981 0.08960873

SD 0.57191615 0.48452948 0.66010137 0.40732736

Table 11: Overview descriptive statistics (posvsneg)

Two way ANOVA values Critical values Tablet position p = 0.456 F = 0.561 F = 2.69113294 Partial Eta squared= 0.006 α = 0.05 Concrete vs abstract p = 0.924 F = 0.009 F = 2.69113294 Partial Eta squared= 0.000 α = 0.05 Tablet position * Concrete p = 0.492 vs abstract F = 0.475 F = 2.69113294 Partial Eta squared= 0.005 α = 0.05 Table 12: Overview SPSS values (two way ANOVA)

The p-values (0.456; 0.924; 0.492) are all greater than α= 0.05 and the accompanying F values (0.561; 0.009; 0.475) are smaller than the critical F value of 2.69113294. Therefore the conclusion can be that for all the variables, no significant difference between the groups is presented. This means that the construal level will not be more sensitive to the horizontal positioning or that the approach/ avoidance motivation will not be stronger represented within the vertical positioning of the tablet.

4.5. Results concerning H6 The last hypothesis assesses the possible relationship between healthiness and both the AA- and CLT theory. It was reasoned that both the approach motivation and the high construal level (i.e. abstract mindset) will tend to choose for more healthy choices in comparison to the avoidance and low construal level. First an analysis concerning the construal level and the healthiness choices of the participants is conducted. Within the questionnaire that was used to assess the attitudes towards healthfulness, negative statements were included. These statements need to be recoded in order to correctly assess the attitudes (e.g. a score of 7 becomes a score of 1, and a score of 1 becomes a 7). Secondly, a separate analysis to assess the link between AA and healthy choices will be performed. Lastly, the SwAAP performance will be included in the analysis.

4.5.1. Influence of construal level on product related aspects/healthy choices

4.5.1.1. Descriptive statistics In this section an investigation is conducted in order to assess whether or not the different construal levels lead to different results concerning both the overall judgment of food products and the health consciousness. In table 13 on overview of the overall judgment of food products is given. No division is made between abstract vs. concrete mindset. The values in the table are taken from figure hh and ii in appendix B.

Perceived healthiness Difficulty to judge Perceived attractiveness Correlations

M SD M SD M SD Correlation (p-value)

Chocolate 2.28 1.014 3.28 1.535 5.56 1.525 0.482 0.000

Apple 6.50 0.590 2.14 1.096 5.30 1.176 -0.497 0.000

Chips 1.20 0.402 2.04 1.109 5.64 1.442 0.285 0.003

Table 13: Overview descriptive statistics (product related aspects)

As you can see in the table, an apple was judged to be most healthy (M= 6.50, SD= 0.59), and chips was judged to be least healthy (M= 1.20, SD=0.402). The chocolate was the most difficult to judge (M=3.28; SD= 1.535) whereas the chips was seen as the most attractive (M= 5.64, SD= 1.442), followed by the chocolate (M= 5.56, SD= 1.525). These findings are in line with previously executed research. Two positive correlations (figure ii) for both the chocolate and chips (0.482; 0.285) can be recognized, indicating that the more healthy the participants thought the product was, the more difficult they found it to make a judgement. The correlation for chocolate is a moderate positive relationship (0.482), whereas the the positive relationship for chips is rather small (0.285). The negative correlation of an apple (-0.497) is seen as a moderate negative relationship, which indicates that the unhealthier the participants thought the product was, the more difficult they found it to make a judgment. The p-values (0.000; 0.000; 0.003) related to the correlation Pearson coefficient are all smaller than the significance value of α= 0.05, stating that a statistical significant relationship can be notified.

4.5.1.2. Influence construal level on healthy choices However, a one-way ANOVA with every dependent variable is needed if an investigation is wanted to see whether there is a difference between the answers given within the two different construal levels. The variable concretevsabstract is considered as the factor within this analysis, while the different dependent variables are gezondchoc, gezondappel, gezondchips, moeilijkheidchoc, moeilijkheidappel, moeilijkheidchips, aantrekkelijkheidchoc, aantrekkelijkheidappel, aantrekkelijkheidchips and somclt. The last variable SOMCLT is the sum of the scores of the statements that assess the health consciousness. These statements, used to assess this link, are based upon the general health interest, light product interest and natural product interest used in the literature (Roininen et al., 1999) and have a calculated Cronbach alpha of 0.765 (figure nn. This is an indication that there is a high internal consistency and proves that the sum of the statements scores can be taken.

Two assumptions must be checked before executing these tests, namely a normality check and a test to investigate the homoscedasticity. In appendix B, the output of SPSS is included. The assumption of

normality (H0) is fulfilled (see figure jj) as the p-values (0.071; 0.2; 0.30; 0.520) are all greater than the

significance value of α=0.05. Figure kk contains the Levene’s test for homoscedasticity. The H0 of homoscedasticity can be retained, as all the p-values (0.261; 0.105; 0.175; 0.564; 0.532; 0.281; 0.107;

0.054; 0.562; 0.156) are greater than the significance value of α=0.05. Both the assumptions are thus fulfilled, therefore the one-way ANOVA can be executed. Figure ll contains the different descriptives. Small differences between the different means can be notified and an investigation is done in order to see whether or not these different means are statistical significant different. The most important values are included in table 14 and 15.

Concrete Astract Total Dependent variable M SD M SD M SD Gezondchoc 2.37 1.085 2.19 0.942 2.28 1.014 Gezondappel 6.58 0.537 6.42 0.633 6.50 0.590 Gezondchips 1.17 0.382 1.23 0.423 1.20 0.402 Moeilijkheidchoc 3.50 1.528 3.06 1.524 3.28 1.535 Moeilijkheidappel 2.08 1.064 2.21 1.133 2.14 1.096 Moeilijkheidchips 2.08 1.186 2.00 1.038 2.04 1.109 Aantrekkelijkheidchoc 5.67 1.368 5.45 1.671 5.56 1.525 Aantrekkelijkheidappel 5.19 1.329 5.40 1.007 5.30 1.176 Aantrekkelijkheidchips 5.56 1.392 5.72 1.498 5.64 1.442 SOMCLT 69.1154 10.43308 74.3396 13.70842 71.7524 12.41880 Table 14: Overview descriptive statistics (construal level and healthiness)

F statistic p-value

Gezondchoc 0.795 0.375 Gezondappel 1.991 0.161 Gezondchips 0.460 0.499 Moeilijkheidchoc 2.216 0.140 Moeilijkheidappel 0.371 0.544 Moeilijkheidchips 0.125 0.724 Aantrekkelijkheidchoc 0.545 0.462 Aantrekkelijkheidappel 0.787 0.377 Aantrekkelijkheidchips 0.318 0.574 SOMCLT 4.815 0.030 Table 15: Overview SPSS values (one way ANOVA)

No statistical significant difference between the low- and high level construal for all the product related variables (i.e. Gezondchoc, GezondAppel, GezondChips, MoeilijkheidChoc, MoeilijkheidAppel, MoeilijkheidChips, AantrekkelijkheidChoc, AantrekkelijkheidAppel and AantrekkelijkheidChips) can be found (figure mm). This decision is made based upon the different F-statistics (0.795; 1.991; 0.460; 2.216; 0.371; 0.125; 0.545; 0.787; 0.318), which are all smaller than the critical value of 3.9333645, and

the accompanying p-values (0.375; 0.161; 0.499; 0.140; 0.544; 0.724; 0.462; 0.377; 0.574) which are all greater than the significance value of α=0.05. In contrast, the variable SOMCLT that has a lower p- value than α= 0.05 and a F-statictic that is greater than the critical value 3.93333645 (p-value= 0.030 and F= 4.815). This indicates that there is a significant effect. A high score on the health consciousness scale thus means a high degree of health, natural product interest and light product. The mean for the abstract mindset condition (M=74.3396) is thus higher than the mean for the concrete mindset condition (M= 69.1154), indicating that the high construal level (i.e. abstract mindset condition) will lead to a greater tendency to eat/ buy healthy food.

4.5.2. Influence approach/ avoidance motivation on health choices

To investigate whether or not a difference can be found between approach – or avoidance motivated participants, a one-way ANOVA should be executed. In appendix B, the output of SPSS is included. The variable tablet position is considered as the factor within this analysis, while the different dependent variables are somappraoch and somavoidance. These last variables are the sum of the scores of the statements that assess the different PEBS statements and have a calculated Cronbach alpha of 0.728 and 0.855 (figure qq). This is an indication that there is a high internal consistency and proves that the sum of the statements scores can be taken.

Two assumptions must be checked before performing this test, namely a normality check and a test to investigate the homoscedasticity. The assumption of normality (=H0) is fulfilled as the p-values of the Shapiro-Wilk test (0.954; 0.113; 0.226; 0.105) are all greater than the significance value of α=0.05

(figure oo). Figure pp contains the Levene’s test for homoscedasticity. The H0 of homoscedasticity can be retained, as all the p-values (0.960; 0.582) are greater than the significance value of α=0.05. Both the assumptions are thus fulfilled, therefore the one-way ANOVA can be executed. Figure rr contains the different descriptives. Small differences between the different means can be notified and an investigation is done in order to see whether or not these different means are statistical significant different. The most important values are included in table 16.

SOMApproach SOMAvoidance

Vertical Horizontal Total Vertical Horizontal Total

M 22.6531 22.3393 22.4857 17.9796 17.5179 17.7333

SD 5.96361 5.45153 5.67063 7.16324 7.42965 7.27518

p-value 0.779 0.747

F statistic 0.079 0.104

Table 16: Overview SPSS values (one way ANOVA)

No statistical significant difference is found between the approach – and avoidance motivated participants for both the dependent variables SOMApproach and SOMAvoidance (figure ss). This decision can be made based upon the different F-statistic (0.079; 0.104), which are all smaller than the critical value of 3.9333645, and their accompanying p-values of 0.446 and 0.747 which are greater than the significance value of α=0.05. This test thus indicates that there is no significant difference in the healthiness choices between an approach – or avoidance motivated participant.

4.5.3. Relationship between approach avoidance motivation, construal level theory and healthy choices

To investigate this relationship, a MANCOVA is performed. This is a multivariate analysis of variance (2x2 between subjects) with the inclusion of a covariate. The performance of the SwAAP (i.e. posvsneg) is considered as the covariate in this case. The dependent variables are SOMCLT, SOMApproach and SOMAvoidance, whereas the fixed factors are tabletposition and concretevsabstract. The MANCOVA has eight assumptions that need to be investigated before executing the MANOVA. Four assumptions can be confirmed without doing analysis. The covariate and dependent variables are continuous (1), where the independent variables are categorical (2). Besides, the sampling of data was done using a random selection method (3) and the variables are independent, and therefore do not influence each other (4). Four assumptions remain that need to be tested. The first assumption states that the correlations between the dependent variables must be not too high, or to low and the covariance matric must be equal. The correlations found in figure tt are all around 0.5 (0.492; 0.452; 0.381) and the covariance matrix is equal, indicating that the MANOVA can be executed. The second assumption states that there must be an absence of multicollinearity between the dependent variables (i.e. SOMCLT, SOMApproach and SOMAvoidance) and is investigated in the figure uu in appendix B. All the VIF factors (1.170; 1.257; 1.320) do not exceed the value of 3, where > 3 is an indication of multicollinearity. Therefore it can be stated that there is an absence of multicollinearity between the dependent variables. The third assumption assesses the multivariate normality that is present in the data. Figure vv, contains the test of normality. For the variables SOMCLT, SOMApproach and posvsneg it is proven to be normality as the p-values of both the Kolmogorov- Smirnov (0.116; 0.2; 0.2) as the Shapiro- Wilk test (0.643; 0.795; 0.432) are all greater than 0.05. For the variable SOMAvoidance, the p-value according the Kolmogorv- Smirnov is 0.058 which indicates that the normality hypothesis is retained. However, in contrast with the Kolmogorv- Smirnov test, the Shapiro-Wilk indicates that the normality hypothesis cannot be retained as the p-value of 0.016 is smaller than the significance value of α=0.05. The analysis will be executing, holding this minor deficit in mind. The last assumption contains the homogeneity of variance, which investigates whether or not the variance between the different groups is equal. Figure ww contains the Levene’s test, where the p-values (0.467; 0.987; 0.996) are all greater than the significance value of α=0.05, and the F-values (0.855; 0.047; 0.020) are all smaller than the critical value of 2.69461845. Thus homogeneity of variances is the case with our data.

Before executing the MANCOVA, three small ANOVA analyses are performed, where in each analysis one of the three variables SOMCLT, SOMApproach and SOMAvoidance is taken as a dependent variable. The fixed factors are always the same (i.e. concretevsabstract and tablet position). First case is when SOMCLT is the dependent variable. Figure zz gives an overview of the different observations within the different categories, whereas figure xx gives an overview of the descriptive statistics. All the relevant values are included in table 17 and 18. No significant effect is found for posvsneg, tabletposition or tabletposition* concretevsabstract as these significance values (0.473; 0.106; 0.898) are all greater than α=0.05 and their accompanying F values (0.519; 2.656; 0.016) are all smaller than the critical value of 2.693720292. In contrast, the p-value (0.019) representing the variable concretevsabstract is smaller than the significance value of α=0.05 and its F statistic (5.701) is greater than the critical value of 2.69372092. Therefore a significant effect is found, but the overall effect, presented by the partial eta square (0.054), is rather small (figure xx). When zooming in on this effect, represented by figure aaa, a statistical significant difference between the means of SOMCLT and between the concrete and abstract group can be found (68.957 vs. 74.711). Please note that these means are refactored to equal observations by SPSS. The means included in table 17 are not refactored yet. This is the same conclusion as in section 4.4.1.2..

Vertical position Horizontal position Total SOMCLT Concrete Abstract Total Concrete Abstract Total Concrete Abstract Total

M 71.0714 76.3810 73.3469 66.8333 73.0000 70.3571 69.1154 74.3396 71.7524 SD 10.21592 66.8333 11.92258 10.42850 13.86572 12.77985 10.43308 13.70842 12.41880 Table 17: Overview descriptive statistics (SOMCLT)

F statistic p-value

Posvsneg 0.519 0.473

Tablet position 2.656 0.106

Concretevsabstract 5.701 0.019

Tabletposition* concretevsabstract 0.016 0.898

Table 18: Overview SPSS values (test between-subjects effects) (SOMCLT)

The second case is where SOMApproach is the dependent variable. Figure bbb gives an overview of the different observations within the different categories, whereas figure ccc gives an overview of the descriptive statistics. All the relevant values are included in table 19 and 20. No significant effect is found for the posvsneg, tabletposition or concretevsabstract as their p-values (0.710; 0.784; 0.820) are all greater than the significance value of α=0.05 and the accompanying F statistics (0.139; 0.076; 0.052) are smaller than the critical value of 2.69372092. In contrast, the p-value linked with the interaction tabletposition*concretevsabstract of 0.038 is smaller than the significance value of α=0.05 and its

accompanying F statistic (4.429) is greater than the critical value of 2.69372092. Therefore a significant effect can be found, but the overall effect, presented by the partial eta square (0.042) is rather small (figure ddd). When zooming in on this effect, represented by figure eee, a statistical significant difference between the means of SOMApproach is no longer found. The p-values (0.093; 0.202) that corresponds with this pairwise comparisons are all greater than the significance value of 0.05.

SOM- Vertical position Horizontal position Total Approach Concrete Abstract Total Concrete Abstract Total Concrete Abstract Total

M 23.7857 21.1429 22.6531 21.1250 23.2500 22.3393 22.5577 22.4151 22.4857 SD 5.95263 5.77309 5.96361 5.47971 5.33401 5.45153 5.83906 5.55543 5.67063 Table 19: Overview descriptive statistics (SOMApproach)

F statistic p-value

Posvsneg 0.139 0.710

Tablet position 0.076 0.784

Concretevsabstract 0.052 0.820

Tabletposition* concretevsabstract 4.429 0.038

Table 20: Overview SPSS values (test between-subjects effects) (SOMApproach)

The third case is where SOMAvoidance is the dependent variable. Figure ggg gives an overview of the different observations within the different categories, whereas figure fff gives an overview of the descriptive statistics. All the relevant values are included in table 21 and 22. No significant effect is found for the variables posvsneg, tabletposition, concretevsabstract and the interaction effect tabletposition*concretevsabstract as the p-values (0.355; 0.647; 0.615; 0.187) are all greater than α=0.05 and their accompanying F statistics (0.863; 0.210; 0.255; 1.765) are all smaller than the critical value of 2.69372092 (figure hhh). Thus no significant difference be found between the different means.

SOM- Vertical position Horizontal position Total Avoidance Concrete Abstract Total Concrete Abstract Total Concrete Abstract Total

M 18.5357 17.2381 17.9796 15.9583 18.6875 17.5179 17.3462 18.1132 17.7333 SD 7.01048 7.46930 7.16324 7.48610 7.28426 7.42965 7.27845 7.32136 7.27518 Table 21 Overview descriptive statistics (SOMAvoidance)

F statistic p-value

Posvsneg 0.863 0.355

Tablet position 0.210 0.647

Concretevsabstract 0.255 0.615

Tabletposition* concretevsabstract 1.765 0.187

Table 22: Overview SPSS values (test between-subjects effects) (SOMAvoidance)

When performing a MANOVA, the same results should pop up as with the three different one way ANOVA’s. The tests of between subjects effects, figure iii, gives us the same statistical significant effects as the three one way ANOVA’s. The p value for concretevsabstract on the dependent variable SOMCLT is 0.019, where the p value for the interaction tabletposition*concretevsabstract together with the dependent variable SOMApproach is 0.034, both indicating significant differences between the two means.

When the covariate posvsneg (figures jjj) is included, the same p-value of 0.019 and F statistic of 5.701can be found for the source concretevsabstract with SOMCLT as dependent variable. The significance value for the interaction effect and the dependent variable SOMApproach is slightly different using the MANCOVA (0.034 in MANOVA, 0.038 in MANCOVA). When zooming in on these effect, looking at the pairwise comparisons (figure kkk), the same conclusion can be drawn again. Within the SOMCLT, there is a difference between the abstract and concrete group, whereas within the SOMApproach, no statistical difference can be found within the concrete group, where the tablet is positioned either horizontal or vertical. No other significant effects can be found as no p value is smaller than α= 0.05 in figure jjj. This means that the covariate has no effect on the outcome.

5. Conclusion

In this master dissertation, the goal was to assess the use of the SwAAP within consumer research. A first aim was to confirm the tendencies towards the compatibility effect of the SwAAP found by Kraus (2014). A second aim was to see whether or not a difference in mindset induction together with a positive or negative affect (created by the SwAAP) would lead to different responses concerning their health. It was hypothesised that the consumers with an abstract mindset induction, together with the approach tendencies would lead to more healthier choices than the opposite (i.e. concrete mindset induction and avoidance tendencies). Furthermore, hypotheses described the difference in performance, where the CLT would be more sensitive to the horizontal position whereas the approach avoidance tendencies would be more represented within the vertical position.

Unfortunately, the results showed that the compatibility effect was not found, which also has a great influence on the rest of the results. Our results suggest that within the vertical position, no difference in the swipe speed can be determined. This is in line with the second study of Kraus (2014), which revealed that the speed of swiping away from the self was more or less the same for both positive and negative valanced pictures. However, study 1 revealed that the negative pictures were swiped faster, further and with a higher pressure when the swipe direction was away from themselves. The SwAAP was thus not able to detect and to measure the approach and avoidance tendencies. Also, no difference in performance was found, neither the CLT or AA was more sensitive to a specific position of the tablet. The embodied cognition theory, which states that the upward eye movement could be linked to a more abstract processing style, whereas the downward eye movement can be associated with a more narrow, concrete processing style had no visible influence (Förster et al., 2006; Friedman & Förster, 2000). The fact that no difference in performance is found, could be due to the failed SwAAP which is also considered to be the reason for no difference in performance within the AA tendencies. Furthermore, only within the mindset induction, a difference in health choices could be distinguished. This result was already proven by previous research (Ronteltap et al., 2012; Schmeichel et al., 2011). No differences in healthy choices were found in the approach avoidance tendencies, which was proven by Otis and Pelletier (2008). As it was the goal to create a positive and negative affect using the SwAAP, it is possible that this deficit (i.e. not able to find a compatibility effect) has consequences on the other research questions. Multiple reasons that could have influenced the results together with some possible adaptations for future research will be discussed in the next section.

6. Discussion and future research Although the objective was to replicate the original SwAAP as much as possible, there were some minor differences which could possibly have led to a different outcome. Due to the fact that the SwAAP is not able to measure the approach and avoidance tendencies, no differences were found between the performance in the horizontal and vertical condition. Furthermore, it is believed that the incapability of the SwAAP to create either a positive or negative affect is the reason why no difference between healthy choices were discovered between participants with higher approach tendencies and participants with higher avoidance tendencies. These minor differences should be minimized in further research, in order to try and replicate the original SwAAP. The first aspect is that both a different program and tablet were used (i.e. Nexus 10 vs. Dell touch monitor). The program Inquisit is unfortunately unable to measure the pressure on the screen, which is seen as an important measurement outcome of the procedure. Moreover, no data about the swipe distance and response time was gathered in this research. Also, Kraus (2014) positioned the tablet in a portrait position in order to create a maximum swiping distance. The screen used in the current research was much larger (10.1 vs. 21.5 inch), and therefore it did not seemed necessary to place it in a portrait position. In order to replicate the original experiment as much as possible, it is advised to position the tablet in portrait position in future research. This way the swiping distance is again maximized. Furthermore, different stimuli were used in the current research when comparing these with the original SwAAP. As the same approach was used to select the stimuli, differences in stimuli probably will not make a huge difference. The stimuli used in both experiments are part of the IAPS. All stimuli enclosed in the IAPS contain a strong attitude and therefore should be able to change the implicit attitude of the participant (Field et al., 2011). A last difference from the original SwAAP is the use of a rectangle instead of a triangle to indicate the target area (i.e. to where the stimuli must be swiped). This is because Inquisit is a limited software. However, the point of the triangle in either the bottom or upper part of the tablet emphasises the moving towards or away from the self, which highlights once again the approach and avoidance tendencies.

In contrast, the mindset induction (high vs. low construal level) is considered to be successful, although the test in section 4.4.1. indicates the opposite. One possible reason for this successful manipulation is the fact that a significant difference (M abstract= 74.3396; M concrete= 69.1154) between healthy choices was obtained for both groups. The behavioural identification form, used to check the effectiveness of the manipulation, was situated at the end of the questionnaire and thus makes us believe that the time between the manipulation and the BIF is the culprit. Although the manipulation was considered to be successful, no difference was found between the performance and the different tablet positioning. Two main elements should be considered for future research in order to find a difference between the performance and the different tablet position. A first improvement could be a new set-up of the experiment. Instead of asking the participant to sit down while being in the horizontal positioning,

the tablet could be hanged to a wall so the participants would have to stand up while swiping. This way a better recreation of the habituation to look down is created for processing the stimuli that are considered to be nearby whereas the processing of the distant stimuli are associated by looking up (Ooi et al., 2001). Together with the maximum swipe distance created by hanging up the tablet in portrait orientation, it is expected that the participant will have to look down/ up, therefore emphasising the distance between the self and stimuli. This and the fact that the SwAAP was not successful, another important cause must be mentioned here. The construal level theory is not the only theory that could have influenced the performance. One main theory should be investigated in combination with the construal level theory, namely the reinforcement sensitivity theory which is the combination of the fight/flight/freeze system and the BIS/BAS distinction. A brief elaboration of these two elements are given in the following section.

6.1. The reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) The origin of the reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) can be found within the animal learning research. In the first instance, the RST was focused on the anxiety in terms of a spectrum of disorders and was not considered as a descriptive personality dimension (Jeffrey Alan Gray, 1987). The revolution in personality psychology where it was stated that the motivation and emotion comprises the central processes trait dimension, made sure that the RST was developed as a theory of specific biological system that related to personality. RST was thus no theory of specific traits (Smillie, Pickering, & Jackson, 2006). Two versions of the RST can be distinguished. The first one is the original RST, which is later refined into the new reinforcement sensitivity theory. This new reinforcement sensitivity theory is considered to be the second version. The difference between these two will be discussed briefly, and afterwards an elaboration on the different systems will be presented.

The original reinforcement sensitivity theory consists of a reward-, punishment- and a threat-response system (Jeffrey Alan Gray, 1987). Here the reward system is considered to be the behavioural activation system (BAS), whereas the punishment system is seen as the behavioural inhibition system (BIS). The threat-response was considered to be Fight/Flight system (FFS). The first one, the BAS system, reacts to mediate responses to conditioned signals. These signals could either be of reward or signals indicating a non-punishment is in order. The second system, the BIS system, acts on signals of punishment and non-reward. These signals are conditioned as well. The last one was considered to react to unconditioned aversive stimuli. These responses could either result in defensive aggression, which is seen as a fight reaction, or result in a rapid escape (i.e. flight reaction). Here, the situational factors are of great importance as flight is a response when the threat is rather distance and there is an ability to escape. Otherwise, the fight reaction is chosen to be the appropriate response. It must be remarked, that the FFS was considered to be a secondary punishment system which indicates that it has a rather similar role to the BIS.

A refinement of the BIS, BAS and FFS functions was done in 2000, mainly due to the new data received from animals concerning the neuropsychology of anxiety. Within this new revised model, the BAS still remains the reward system, but this system reacts beside to conditioned stimuli also to appetitive stimuli. Furthermore, the FFS does not only react to unconditioned stimuli, but also to all aversive stimuli. This means that the FFS system adopts the punishment system that was previously assigned to the BIS system. The FFS is renamed to the fight flight and freezing system (FFFS), where the fighting response is in order when the threat stimuli are rather proximal. In contrast, the flight and freezing response are in order with distal threat stimuli, where freezing is the case in the situation where escape is not possible. As previously indicated, the BIS system has a new meaning and is no longer the punishment system. Instead, it is considered to be a conflict detection and resolution device (Blanchard & Blanchard, 1990a, 1990b).

6.1.1. Behavioural inhibition system and behavioural approach (activation) system (BIS/BAS)

People are different in many ways. One person may be extravert while another person is seen as introvert. Likewise, the way that people differ in DNA, the neurobiological processes of one another can differ too. Hence, one of the main questions within psychophysiology research is how all these different neurobiological processes are manifested in motivation and personality (Amodio, Master, Yee, & Taylor, 2008). According to the researchers the building blocks (i.e. motivation and personality) are coming from adaptive behaviour, expressed as two general systems also known as Gray’s two-factor learning theory or BIS/BAS (Carver & White, 1994; Fowles, 1980). The upper is titled as the behavioural inhibition system, abbreviated as BIS, and has the tendency to stop the ongoing behaviour when there is an indication of potential threats, punishments, non-reward or novelty. This systems stops the behaviour in order to facilitate the processing of the signals and hence to prepare a response. Anxiety, vigilance and enhanced attention are examples of negative feelings that are associated with high BIS activation (J A Gray, 1975; Peter J Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990). Complementary, the latter system is described as BAS, better known as behavioural activation system or as behavioural approach system, which is the complementary system to the BIS. This behavioural activation system engages action toward goals when cues such as rewards, escapes from punishment or non-punishments arise. Optimism, joy and aggression are feelings describing a high level of BAS (Fowles, 1980, 1987). Furthermore, the two different systems give rise to different affective dimensions of positive and negative moods, where an increased positive affect is linked with an activation of the BAS by reward. In contrast, an increase negative affect is linked with the activation of the BIS by punishment (Smillie et al., 2006). This can be seen as a resemblance or connection with the SwAAP.

The difference between the two elements within the two-factor learning theory of Gray, have been further examined at some degree by focusing on the neurophysiological substrates that are proposed to underlie each process. On the one hand, while focusing on the BAS, goal-related behaviour is promoted in response to punishment or reward and researchers found that this system is organized by the dopaminergic neurotransmitter system. This means that the prefrontal cortex will be projected by dopamine (Alexander, 1986; Lehéricy et al., 2004; Rolls, 2000). A link between the BAS system and the approach motivations was be found as the approach motivations leads to a dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, which was described in section 2.3.4.. When using the EEG, or electroencephalography, to measure the activity within the prefrontal cortex, researchers have linked activity to constructs (e.g. such as positive versus negative emotion states are linked with approach versus avoidance motivational orientation) (Pizzagalli, Sherwood, Henriques, & Davidson, 2005). Different patterns of frontal asymmetry can be discovered, such as great right-sided activity has been associated with avoidance-related motivation and emotions, whereas greater left-sided frontal asymmetry is associated with emotions and approach-related motivation. These revelations can be seen as strong support for the reasoning that BAS is related to the approach/avoidance theory. In contrast, it is strongly agreed within the literature that BIS is not directly associated with frontal EEG asymmetry, nor with approach/avoidance motivation (Coan & Allen, 2003; Hewig, Hagemann, Seifert, Naumann, & Bartussek, 2006; Sutton & Davidson, 1997). When analysing the neurocognitive correlation of BIS, no evidence of existence is found to date. As pointed out by Gray (1982) monoamine neurotransmitter systems are organized in a neural circuit that includes networks of noradrenergic and serotonergic together with their associated neural structures (McNaughton, 1982). The locus coeruleus, located in the brain stem, is the main source of norepinephrine and has noradrenergic effects on the neural structures. These structures, of which anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is one of them, have the purpose of identifying potential violations and threats (G Aston-Jones, Foote, & Segal, 1985; Gary Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005). At the same time, the ACC is assumed to have a purpose as a conflict- monitoring function. Hence this function supervises among action tendencies and cognitions for conflict and activates additional mechanisms in order to gain top-down control and thereby resolve such conflicts (Amodio & Frith, 2006; Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001). The behavioural inhibition system is seen as a rather sensitive system to unexpected conflicts and stimuli between competing responses (e.g. approach- and avoidance tendencies) and is therefore more corresponded to conflict monitoring and behavioural abatement, rather than to the avoidance (Amodio et al., 2008).

After Gray’s discovery of the two personality dimensions, a lot of attempts were made to assess these two dimensions. Some of the attempts are instruments originally designed for other purposes, but were used to try and assess these sensitivity of the BIS/BAS. Examples of these instruments are the Extraversion scale from the EPQ, where the test looks for derivations from the Gray’s theory using individual-difference predictions. The second attempt was the use of the socialization scale of the

California Psychological Inventory where tendencies toward delinquency and antisocial acts are measured. Furthermore, the psychopathy checklist that assesses antisocial behaviour was used to assess the BAS sensitivity. A last example was the use of measurements of impulsiveness to assess the BAS sensitivity. Unfortunately, none of them were a perfect match and reasons to be concerned arose. The lack of a consistent measurement for the BIS/BAS system led the researchers Carver and White (1994) to develop the BIS/BAS scales. The initial goal was to develop a brief instrument with a focus on the measurement of psychological qualities. Due to the presumption in the current research, the BIS/ BAS theory could potentially play a role, the BIS/ BAS scales were included in the questionnaire. Hence, a generation of items supposedly reflecting on either BIS or BAS sensitivity were gathered and were written in a Likert-type format. On the one hand, statements that mirror a concern about the possibility of a bad occurrence are included in the current research trying to assess the BIS sensitivity. On the other hand, while approaching the assessment of BAS sensitivity, statements that reflect the strong pursuit of goals, reward or responsiveness are included. An overview of the different statements of the BIS/BAS scale is included in the appendix A. The attentive reader remarks one BIS-related or punishment sensitivity scale in comparison with three different BAS-related scales one. BIS-related scales engages all the reactions to the anticipation of punishment. The BAS-related scales encloses three scales, namely the Drive sale, the fun seeking scale and the reward responsiveness scale. The first one, the Drive scale, is developed to discover the desire to pursuit goals, whereas the Fun Seeking scale assesses both the desire to approach a potentially profitable event and new rewards. The last one, also known as the reward responsiveness scale, looks at the possible event of an anticipation or reward and focuses on the positive responses from the participant (e.g. winning a game).

In order to see whether or not the BIS/BAS theory would have an influence on the performance of the SwAAP, a MANCOVA is performed,. This is an enlargement of the previously done MANOVA, where the BIS, BAS Reward responsiveness, BAS Drive and BAS Fun seeking are added as a dependent variable. In the outcome, included in appendix B (section 2.6), a significant effect (0.025) for the BAS Reward responsiveness variable was found together with the posvsneg variable. Furthermore, a significant effect (0.006; 0.028) could be found between the concretevsabstract variable and both the BAS Reward responsiveness and BAS drive. Looking back at the definition of both these variables, the BAS Drive measures the desire to pursuit goals, therefore it makes sense that there is a difference between the mindset induction. Looking back at the mindset induction of our experiment (i.e. the why questions), the participants were asked to formulate three ways why good and personal relationships could help and assist in meeting important life goals. Moreover, the BAS Reward responsiveness looks at possible event of an anticipation or reward and focuses on the positive response from participants. This variable thus contains the term positive responses, which could be related to the positive affect that possibly was created by the SwAAP. Furthermore, the concrete mindset induction (low construal level) focusses on the concrete concepts,

and the near stimuli. In the mindset induction within our experiment, participants were asked how they would create and maintain good personal relationships. These means, indicated by the participant, could be seen as a possible event of reward when completed. These results thus indicate that there could be a possible link between the SwAAP, the CLT and the BIS/BAS theory. The influence of the BIS/BAS on the SwAAP must therefore be investigated.

6.1.2. Fight/ Flight/ Freeze System

The original system, also called the acute stress response, was first described as a theory within the animal kingdom. When encountering an experience where stress is in order, a bodily reaction is triggered, which is either a fight or flight response. When one of the two responses is activated, sequences of nerve cell firing occur which leads to chemicals like cortisol, adrenaline to enter our bloodstream. A speeding heart rate, slowing digestion and chances in various nervous functions are consequences as well. The fight response is activated, when you want to physically fight/ attack the threat. In the other case, the flight response, the response is to run away the threat when facing it (Smillie et al., 2006). Since the revision of the theory, the freeze response to the original fight/flight system was added. The freeze response corresponds to a hypervigilance state, which refers to a state where you are hyper-alert and being more watchful. It is assumed that this response appears before the flight and fight reaction. If, after the freeze response, there is no opportunity to flight, the human will execute the fight response (Bracha, Ralston, Matsukawa, Williams, & Bracha, 2004). As some participants may see negatively valanced picture as a threat, therefore first freeze (i.e. maybe expanding the response time) and afterwards selecting the appropriate response, this part of the RST should be investigated as well.

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Appendices 1. Appendix A: Methodology

1.1. Stimuli from International Affective Picture System (IAPS)

Neutral stimuli (practise trial) 7004 2214 6150 7207 7187 7182 7170 7237 Negative stimuli Positive stimuli 1110 6831 1460 4641 2205 9040 1604 5001 2730 9140 1710 5260 2751 9180 1721 5594 3030 9181 1750 5621 3120 9250 1920 5830 3168 9265 1999 7325 3181 9300 2057 8170 3230 9410 2070 8210 3261 9433 2209 8370 3301 9561 2331 8420 6300 9571 2370 8490 6313 9800 2655 8496 6821 9920 4606 8540 Table a: Overview used stimuli

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1.2. Behaviour Identification Form (BIF)

Item Different options 1. Making a list a. Getting organized5 b. Writing things down 2. Reading a. Following lines of print b. Gaining knowledge1 3. Joining the army a. Helping the Nation’s defence1 b. Signing up 4. Washing clothes a. Removing odours from clothes1 b. Putting clothes into the machine 5. Picking an apple a. Getting something to eat1 b. Pulling an apple off a branch 6. Chopping down a tree a. Wielding an axe b. Getting firewood1 7. Measuring a room for carpeting a. Getting ready to remodel1 b. Using a yardstick 8. Cleaning the house a. Showing one’s cleanliness1 b. Vacuuming the floor 9. Painting a room a. Applying brush strokes b. Making the room look fresh1 10. Paying the rent a. Maintaining a place to live1 b. Writing a check 11. Caring for houseplants a. Watering plants b. Making the room look nice1 12. Locking a door a. Putting a key in the lock b. Securing the house1 13. Voting a. Influencing the election1 b. Marking a ballot 14. Climbing a tree a. Getting a good view1 b. Holding on to branches 15. Filling out a personality test a. Answering questions b. Revealing what you are like1 16. Tooth brushing a. Preventing tooth decay1 b. Moving a brush around in one’s mouth 17. Taking a test a. Answering questions b. Showing one’s knowledge1 18. Greeting someone a. Saying hello b. Showing friendliness1 19. Resisting temptation a. Saying “no” b. Showing moral courage1 20. Eating a. Getting nutrition1 b. Chewing and swallowing 21. Growing a garden a. Planting seeds b. Getting fresh vegetables1 22. Traveling by car a. Following a map b. Seeing countryside1 23. Having a cavity filled a. Protecting your teeth1 b. Going to the dentist 24. Talking to a chid a. Teaching a child something1 b. Using simple words 25. Pushing a doorbell a. Moving a finger b. Seeing if someone’s home1 Table b: BIF

5 Higher-level alternative

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1.3. Positive And Negative Affect Schedule scales (PANAS)

Hoe voel jij je op dit moment? Voel jij je op dit moment…

Heel licht of Een beetje Matig Sterk Heel sterk helemaal niet

Enthousiast

Geïnteresseerd

Vastberaden, vastbesloten

Opgewekt, uitgelaten

Geïnspireerd, vol inspiratie

Alert

Actief, energiek

Sterk

Zelfverzekerd, trots, fier

Aandachtig, oplettend

Bang

Bevreesd, angstig

Van streek, terneergeslagen

Bedroefd, overstuur

Zenuwachtig, rusteloos, gejaagd

Nerveus, gespannen

Beschaamd

Schuldig

Prikkelbaar, (vlug) geïrriteerd

Vijandig

Table c: PANAS

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1.4. Link CLT and healthy choices

Bekijk onderstaande producten.

Hoe gezond denkt u dat elk van deze producten zijn?

Zeer Matig Licht Licht Matig Neutraal Zeer gezond ongezond ongezond ongezond gezond gezond

Chocolade

Appel

Chips

Table d: Healthiness products

Hoe moeilijk is het voor u om over de gezondheid van deze producten te oordelen?

Zeer Redelijk Enigszins Enigszins Redelijk Neutraal Zeer moeilijk eenvoudig eenvoudig eenvoudig moeilijk moeilijk

Chocolade

Appel

Chips

Table e: judgements products

Hoe aantrekkelijk vindt u deze producten?

Zeer Redelijk Enigszins Enigszins Redelijk Zeer onaantrekk onaantrekk onaantrekk Neutraal aantrekkeli aantrekkeli aantrekkelijk elijk elijk elijk jk jk

Chocolade

Appel

Chips

Table f: Attractiveness products

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Beantwoord deze verklaringen alstublieft zo nauwkeurig mogelijk.

Volledig Enigszin Enigszin Volledig Mee Mee mee s mee Neutraal s mee mee oneens eens oneens oneens eens eens

De gezondheid van voedsel heeft weinig invloed op mijn voedselkeuzes.6 Ik ben heel kieskeurig over de gezondheid van het voedsel dat ik eet. Ik eet wat ik lekker vind en maak me geen zorgen over de gezondheid van eten.2 Het is belangrijk voor mij dat mijn dieet weinig vet bevat.

Ik volg altijd een gezond en gebalanceerd dieet.

Het is belangrijk voor mij dat mijn dagelijkse voeding veel vitamines en mineralen bevat. De gezondheid van tussendoortjes maakt voor mij geen verschil.2 Ik vermijd geen enkele voeding, ook niet als ze mijn cholesterol kunnen verhogen.2

Ik denk niet dat light producten gezonder zijn dan conventionele producten.2 Naar mijn mening verbetert het gebruik van light producten iemands gezondheid niet.2 Naar mijn mening helpen light producten niet om het cholesterolgehalte te verlagen.2 Ik geloof dat het eten van light producten het cholesterolniveau onder controle houdt. Ik geloof dat het eten van light producten je lichaam in goede conditie houdt. Naar mijn mening kan je door het eten van light producten meer eten zonder te veel calorieën binnen te krijgen.

Ik probeer voedingsmiddelen te eten die geen additieven bevatten. Ik geef niet om additieven in mijn dagelijkse voeding.2 Ik eet geen verwerkte voedingsmiddelen, omdat ik niet weet wat ze bevatten. Ik zou alleen biologisch geteelde groenten willen eten. Naar mijn mening zijn kunstmatig gearomatiseerde voedingsmiddelen niet schadelijk voor mijn gezondheid.2 Naar mijn mening zijn biologisch geteelde voedingsmiddelen niet beter voor mijn gezondheid dan degene die conventioneel worden gekweekt.2 Table g: Attitudes towards healthfulness of foods

6 Negative statements that need to be recoded for the final scores.

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1.5. Link AA and healthy choices

Beantwoord deze verklaringen alstublieft zo nauwkeurig mogelijk.

Door- Nooit Zelden Af en toe Soms Vaak Altijd gaans

Ik denk aan het voorbereiden van eenvoudige en gezonde maaltijden als ik een drukke/ stressvolle week verwacht. Ik denk na over welke gezonde restaurants ik ga bezoeken. Ik denk aan de nieuwe en gezonde recepten die ik wil proberen. Ik denk aan de kwaliteit van voedsel dat ik zal eten.

Ik denk na over de verscheidenheid aan voedsel dat ik zal eten. Ik denk na over nieuwe groenten en fruit die ik in maaltijden kan introduceren. Ik denk na over specifieke tijden waarin ik mezelf heb onthouden van eten. Ik denk na over de reeks antwoorden die ik kan gebruiken als ik situaties tegenkom waar ik de neiging heb om te veel te eten.

Ik denk na hoe ik verleidingen kan vermijden.

Ik denk na hoe ik kan voorkomen dat ik vet bevattend voedsel zal opeten. Ik denk erover na om niet naar de dessertselectie in restaurants te kijken. Ik denk na over strategieën om te veel eten/ tussendoortjes te vermijden als ik me verveel. Table h: PEBS

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1.6. The BIS/BAS scales

Helemaal niet Niet van Niet echt van Een beetje van Van Sterk van van toepassing toepassing op toepassing op Neutraal toepassing op toepassing op toepassing op op mij mij mij mij mij mij 1. BIS Ik raak enigszins gestrest als ik denk dat er iets vervelends staat te gebeuren. Ik pieker wel eens over het maken van fouten. Kritiek of uitbranders raken mij behoorlijk. Ik voel me bezorgd of overstuur als ik denk of weet dat er iemand boos is op mij. Ik voel zelden angst of zenuwen, zelfs als me iets vervelends staat te wachten. Ik voel me bezorgd als ik denk dat ik slecht heb gepresteerd. Ik ervaar weinig angsten vergeleken met mijn vrienden.

2. BAS Reward Responsiveness Als ik krijg wat ik wil, voel ik me opgewonden en energiek. Als ik iets goed doen, wil ik er graag mee doorgaan. Als ik iets leuks meemaak heeft dat duidelijk invloed op me. Als ik een wedstrijd zou winnen, zou ik erg enthousiast zijn. 3. BAS Drive Als ik ergens een buitenkansje zie dan word ik meteen enthousiast. Als ik iets wil, zal ik er gewoonlijk alles aan doen om dit te krijgen. Ik zal over mijn grenzen heen gaan om de dingen te krijgen die ik wil. Als ik de kans zie iets te krijgen wat ik wil, zal ik die kans meteen grijpen. Als ik iets van plan ben dan laat ik mij door niets weerhouden. 4. BAS Fun Seeking Vaak doe ik dingen enkel om de reden dat het leuk kan zijn. Ik verlang naar spanning en sensatie. Ik ben altijd bereid iets nieuws te proberen als ik denk dat het leuk zal zijn. Ik doe vaak dingen in een vlaag van opwelling. Table i: BIS/BAS Scale

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2. Appendix B: SPSS results

2.1. Data clarification

Variable Meaning of the variable Positphotos Represents the score for the positive valanced pictures, calculated as follows: 퐴푉퐺 푠푝푒푒푑 푑표푤푛푤푎푟푑푠−퐴푉퐺 푠푝푒푒푑 푢푝푤푎푟푑푠

푆퐷 표푓 푡ℎ푒 푎푣푒푟푎푔푒 푠푤𝑖푝𝑖푛푔 푠푝푒푒푑 Negatphotos Represents the score for the negative valanced pictures, calculated as follows: 퐴푉퐺 푠푝푒푒푑 푑표푤푛푤푎푟푑푠−퐴푉퐺 푠푝푒푒푑 푢푝푤푎푟푑푠

푆퐷 표푓 푡ℎ푒 푎푣푒푟푎푔푒 푠푤𝑖푝𝑖푛푔 푠푝푒푒푑 Posvsneg = Positphotos- Negatphotos Tabletposition Defines the positioning of the tablet, where 1 represents the vertical condition and 2 represents the horizontal condition Concretevsabstract Defines the different mindset inductions, where 1 represents the concrete mindset (=low construal level) and 2 represents the abstract mindset condition (= high construal level) GezondChoc Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the question: “How healthy do you think chocolate is?” GezondAppel Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the question: “How healthy do you think an apple is?” GezondChips Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the question: “How healthy do you think chips is?” MoeilijkheidChoc Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the question: “How difficult do you find it to make the judgement of healthiness for chocolate?” MoeilijkheidAppel Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the question: “How difficult do you find it to make the judgement of healthiness for an apple?” MoeilijkheidChips Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the question: “How difficult do you find it to make the judgement of healthiness for chips?” AantrekkelijkheidChoc Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “How attractive do you find chocolate?” AantrekkelijkheidAppel Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “How attractive do you find an apple?” AantrekkelijkheidChips Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “How attractive do you find chips?” GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 1 “The healthiness of food has little impact on my food choices.”7 GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 2 “I am very particular about the healthiness of food I eat” GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 3 “I eat what I like and I do not worry much about the healthiness of food.”3 GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 4 “It is important for me that my diet is low in fat.” GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 5 “I always follow a healthy and balanced diet.” GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 6 “It is important for me that my daily diet contains a lot of vitamins and minerals.” GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 7 “The healthiness of snacks makes no difference to me.” 3 GeneralhealthinterestV Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: 8 “I do not avoid foods, even if they may raise my cholesterol”3 LightproductinterestV1 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I do think that light products are healthier than conventional products.” 3 LightproductinterestV2 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “In my opinion, the use of light products does not improve one’s health.” 3 LightproductinterestV3 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “In my opinion, light products don’t help to drop cholesterol levels.” 3 LightproductinterestV4 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I believe that eating light products keep one’s cholesterol level under control.” LightproductinterestV5 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I believe that eating light products keeps one’s body in good shape.” LightproductinterestV6 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “In my opinion by eating light products one can eat more without getting too many calories.” Naturalproductinterest Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: V1 “I try to eat fodds that do not contain additives.”

7 Negative statements

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Naturalproductinterest Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: V2 “I do not care about additives in my daily diet.” 3 Naturalproductinterest Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer on the statement: V3 “I do not eat processed foods, because I do not know what they contain.” Naturalproductinterest Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: V4 “I would like to eat only organically grown vegetables.” Naturalproductinterest Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: V5 “In my opinion, artificially flavoured foods are not harmful for my health.” 3 Naturalproductinterest Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: V6 “In my opinion, organically grown foods are no better for my health than those grown conventionally.” 3 PEBapproachV1 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about preparing easy and healthy meals when I anticipate a busy/stressful week”. PEBapproachV2 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about which healthy restaurants I’ll go to”. PEBapproachV3 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about the new and healthy recipes I want to try”. PEBapproachV4 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about the quality of the food that I will eat”. PEBapproachV5 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about the variety of food that I will eat”. PEBapproachV6 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about the new fruits and vegetables that I can introduce into meals”. PEBavoidanceV1 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about specific times when I refrained from eating”. PEBavoidanceV2 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about strategies to avoid overeating/snacking when I get bored”. PEBavoidanceV3 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about ways to avoid temptations”. PEBavoidanceV4 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about strategies to avoid succumbing to fattening food”. PEBavoidanceV5 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about not looking at the dessert selection at restaurants”. PEBavoidanceV6 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I think about a set of responses to be used when I encountered situations where I tend to overeat”. BISBASV1 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “If I think something unpleasant is going to happen I usually get pretty ‘worked up’”. BISBASV2 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I worry about making mistakes”. BISBASV3 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “Criticism or scolding hurts me quite a bit”. BISBASV4 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I feel pretty worried or upset when I think or know somebody is angry at me”. BISBASV5 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “Even if something bad is about to happen to me, I rarely experience fear or nervousness”. BISBASV6 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I feel worried when I think I have done poorly at something”. BISBASV7 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I have very few fears compared to my friends”. BISBASV8 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “When I get something I want, I feel excited and energized”. BISBASV9 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “When I’m doing well at something, I love to keep at it”. BISBASV10 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “When good things happen to me, it affects me strongly”. BISBASV11 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “It would excite me to win a contest”. BISBASV12 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “When I see an opportunity for something I like, I get excited right away”. BISBASV13 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “When I want something, I usually go all-out to get it”. BISBASV14 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I go out of my way to get things I want”. BISBASV15 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “If I see a chance to get something I want, I move on it right away”. BISBASV16 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “When I go after something I use a ‘no holds barred’ approach”. BISBASV17 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement:

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“I will often do things for no other reason than that they might be fun”. BISBASV18 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I crave excitement and new sensations”. BISBASV19 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I’m always willing to try something new if I think it will be fun”. BISBASV20 Contains the score of the 7 point-Likert scale that was the answer to the statement: “I often act on the spur of the moment”. BIF1 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Making a list”. BIF2 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Reading”. BIF3 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Joining the Army”. BIF4 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Washing clothes”. BIF5 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Picking an apple”. BIF6 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Chopping down a tree”. BIF7 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Measuring a room for carpeting”. BIF8 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Cleaning the house”. BIF9 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Painting a room”. BIF10 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Paying the rent”. BIF11 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Caring for houseplants”. BIF12 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Locking a door”. BIF13 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Voting”. BIF14 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Climbing a tree”. BIF15 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Filling out a personality test”. BIF16 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Tooth brushing”. BIF17 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Taking a test”. BIF18 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Greeting someone”. BIF19 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Resisting temptation”. BIF20 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Eating”. BIF21 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Growing a garden”. BIF22 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Traveling by car”. BIF23 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Having a cavity filled”. BIF24 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Talking to a child”. BIF25 Contains the answer (either concrete or abstract answer) to the statement: “Pushing a doorbell”. SOMBIF The sum of scores on the questions BIF1-BIF25 BIFScore =SOMBIF/25 SOMCLT The sum of scores on the statements generalhealthinterestV1- generalhealthinterestV8, lightproductinterestV1- lightproductinterestV6 and naturalproductinterestV1- naturalproductinterestV6 SOMApproach The sum of scores on the statements PEBapproachV1- PEBapproachV6 SOMAvoidance The sum of scores on the statements PEBavoidanceV1- PEBavoidanceV6 Gender Defines the gender of the participant. 1 is defined as a male, where 2 represents a female Age Contains the age of the participant Length Contains the length of the participant Visual Defines on a scale from (0-100) how good the visual sight of the participant is. (0: extremely bad – 100: excellent) LeftRighthanded Defines whether the participant is either left- or righthanded. 1 represents a left handed participant, where 2 represents a right handed participant Usetablet Defines the familiarity of the participant with a tablet. 1 indicates that the participant is familiar with the use of a tablet, where 2 represents unfamiliarity with a tablet. Swipemovement Defines the familiarity of the participant with a tablet. 1 indicates that the participant is familiar with the use of a tablet, where 2 represents unfamiliarity with a tablet. Table j: Explanation different variables used in SPSS

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2.2. Data clearing

Figure a: Test of normality (with outliers)

Figure b: Test of normality (without outliers)

2.3. SPSS output concerning H1 and H2

2.3.1. General

One sample T-test:

Figure c: One sample t-test (including all observations)

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Figure d: Paired sample t-test (including all observations)

Figure e: One Sample T-test (horizontal condition)

Figure f: Paired sample t-test (horizontal condition)

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Figure g: One sample t-test (vertical condition)

Figure h: Paired sample t-test (vertical condition)

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2.3.2. Differences between female and male

Assumptions:

Figure i: Test of covariance Figure j: Levene's test (homoscedasticity)

Two-way ANOVA:

Figure k: Overview observations Figure l: Descriptive statistics

Figure m: : Test of between-subjects effects

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Figure n: Pairwise comparison tablet position

Figure o: Pairwise comparison gender

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2.3.3. Differences between left and righthanded participants Assumptions:

Figure q: Levene's test (homoscedasticity) Figure p: Covariance test

Two-way ANOVA:

Figure s: Overview of number of observations Figure r: Descriptive statistics

Figure t: : Test of between- subjects effects

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Figure u: Pairwise comparison left or right handed

Figure v: Pairwise comparison tablet position

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2.3.4. Differences between other groups.

Figure w: Test of normality

Figure x: Test of normality

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2.4. SPSS output concerning H3 and H4

2.4.1. Differences in mindset induction Assumptions:

Figure y: Test of normality

Figure z: Test of internal consistency (Cronbach α)

Figure aa: Levene’s test (homoscedasticity)

Mann- Whitney U test:

Figure bb: Mann-Whitney U test

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2.4.2. Difference on SwAAP performance between mindset induction and tablet position Assumptions:

Figure cc:Test of normality

Figure dd: Levene's test (homoscedasticity) with left the outliner included and right the situation without the outliner

Two-way ANOVA (without outlier):

Figure ff: Overview observations Figure ee: Descriptive statistics

Figure gg: Test of between-subjects effects

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2.5. SPSS output concerning H6

2.5.1. Difference between construal level and product related aspects

Figure hh: Descriptive statistics

Figure ii: Correlations

2.5.2. Difference between construal level and healthy choices Assumptions:

Figure jj: Test of normality

Figure kk: Levene's test (homoscedasticity)

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One Way ANOVA:

Figure ll: Descriptives (divided low- and high construal level)

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Figure mm: One way ANOVA

Figure nn: Internal consistency (Cronbach alpha)

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2.5.3. Difference between approach/ avoidance motivation and healthy choices Assumptions:

Figure oo: Test of normality

Figure pp: Levene's test (homoscedasticity)

Figure qq: Internal consistency (Cronbach alpha of somapproach and somavoidance)

One way ANOVA:

Figure rr: Descriptives

Figure ss: ANOVA

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2.5.4. Relationship between approach avoidance motivation, CLT and healthy choices

Figure tt: Correlations

Figure uu: Multicollineairity

Figure vv: Test of normality

Figure ww: Levene's test (homoscedasticity)

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One way ANOVA (SOMCLT):

Figure zz: Overview observations Figure xx: Descriptive statistics

Figure yy: Test of between subjects effects

Figure aaa: overview estimates and main effect of concrete vs abstract

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One way ANOVA (SOMApproach):

Figure bbb: Overview observations Figure ccc: Descriptive statistics

Figure ddd: Test of between subjects effects

Figure eee: Overview estimates and interaction effect concretevsabstract*tabletposition

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One way ANOVA (SOMAvoidance):

Figure ggg: Overview observations Figure fff: Descriptives statistics

Figure hhh: Test of between subjects effects

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MANOVA:

Figure iii: Test of between subjects effects

MANCOVA:

Figure jjj: Tests of between subjects effects

Figure kkk: Pairwise comparisons

2.6. SPSS output concern ing discussion (influence BIS/BAS)

Assumptions:

Figure lll: Levene's test (homscedasticity)

Figure mmm: Multivariate test

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Figure nnn: Test of between-subjects effects

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Figure ooo: Pairwise comparison

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