1. Basics of Approach/Avoidance—Behavior and Brain
Approach and avoidance behaviors are fundamental to survival. As such, they depend on phylogenetically old systems with many conserved features. For this reason, the basic human brain systems for approach and avoidance have much in common with those of other species. Through study, we know more about the neurobiology of these systems and related traits than we do about most others, and this has translated into progress in human neuroimaging research. In this chapter, we lay out basic principles for understanding the processes of approach and avoidance, and then we briefly discuss neuroimaging research on the states related to them before discussing the progress in research on related personality traits.
Importantly, we define personality traits in terms of longer-term stabilities in patterns of states. That is, the level of a trait reflects the likelihood of being in a particular type of state, given a particular set of eliciting stimuli. The activation of approach and avoidance systems in any given situation requires careful long-term control of its precise intensity for any given input, and this long-term trait control of levels of activation is influenced by genes, developmental processes, and life events. These two systems and their associated traits can be seen as providing a foundation for the more complex processes from which mind and personality emerge.
Both the specific states that result from the activation of approach and avoidance systems and the longer-term sensitivities that tune these activations to match current functional requirements can be assessed indirectly through many techniques, including self-report and behavioral data. But increasingly the more direct measurements of neuroimaging are affording new insights. Detailed analysis of neuroimaging specific aspects of approach/avoidance systems is provided in chapters 3, 5 and 6 of the book. Here, we provide a more general overview of the fundamental nature of approach and avoidance, the systems that control them, details of a third system that resolves conflicts between goals, and the range of resultant states and traits that should be open to analysis by neuroimaging. It is important to note that within this chapter, we will use the simple term “avoidance” to refer to active avoidance (often termed withdrawal) and the terms “goal conflict processing” and “behavioral inhibition” to refer to passive avoidance. This is an important functional distinction, as these two forms of avoidance are mediated by different, and partially opposing, systems of behavior regulation.1,2
It is important to distinguish more general, positively motivated, goal-directed, behavior from object-specific consummatory behaviors (e.g., eating, drinking, and mating). Likewise, direct or very close contacts with specific affectively negative objects require specific defensive behaviors (e.g., attacking an enemy or avoiding contact with fluids from an Ebola corpse). There can be individual differences in these object-specific systems (with extreme sensitivity seen in clinical conditions such as uncontrollable aggression and stimulus-specific phobia). However, once there is even a moderate distance between the organism and the object, the adaptive requirements for approach or avoidance become essentially independent of the specific object—allowing us to talk about more general systems of approach and avoidance that are separate from specific consummatory and defensive reactions. Evolution, therefore, has shaped what can be seen as two general systems dedicated to approach and avoidance, respectively; reflecting the fundamental nature of these systems, they are represented in the major traits of personality.
1.1. Positive and Negative Goals
An important concept in dealing with mammalian approach and avoidance systems is the idea that they process goal representations. The nature of this internal representation needs some explanation and should be kept completely separate from the “goals” that people often attribute to behaviors in terms of external function (obtaining the food at the end of the runway) or evolutionary explanations (achieving survival).
The simplest approach behaviors can be controlled by the detection of gradients rather than by goal representations. A bacterium will approach food through the detection of, for example, chemical gradients in its immediate environment. It has receptors that can detect the strength of a signal (you can think of this as a smell or taste with chemicals) and move in the direction of increasing signal strength. Similarly, a simple multicelled organism can essentially scan gradients of physical stimuli by taking a twisting path through its environment or, when it is close to the source, by wagging its head or body. It then heads in the direction where the signal is strongest, which should ultimately lead it to its food even though it has no information as to the particular location at which it will ultimately arrive. Avoidance behavior can also be governed by gradients. For many organisms, being in the light is dangerous. So even simple detection of light strength allows the organism to move in the opposite direction and find safety (Figure 1).
These kinds of movement, controlled by a local gradient, are called “taxes”3 (pronounced tack-seize). Taxes are often taken to involve a reaction to only very simple stimulus aspects—so that light intensity (as in Figure 1) would be included but visual stimuli that depend on form would not.3,4 Critically, taxes are not goal-directed in the sense that the series of individual behavioral steps are not determined by a single internal representation of their endpoint. Although each behavioral step can be viewed with the goal of reducing the current light level, the final point at which the animal comes to a halt is simply the point at which such a sequence self-terminates and is not represented internally. That is, the maggot follows a path determined by the local gradients even if that is a circuitous route and does not terminate in the darkest place in the environment, whereas a rat controlled by a goal-representation will often take a straight-line path through a strongly lit area to reach the darkest area. So, as external observers, we can often see taxes as causing an organism to reach a “goal” (in a functional and/or evolutionary sen...