The Trade-Off Between Fear and Reward: An Ethobehavioral Study of Avoidance

Abstract

University of Washington Abstract The Trade-Off Between Fear and Reward: An Ethobehavioral Study of Avoidance Rosemary S. W. Walker Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Lori A. Zoellner Department of Psychology A hallmark feature of anxiety is maladaptive avoidance (Pittig, Treanor, LeBeau, & Craske, 2018) and women have higher rates of both anxiety and pathological avoidance than men (Kessler et al., 2005; Seedat et al., 2010). Avoidance can be problematic not only because it blocks corrective learning about what is and is not dangerous but also because it sacrifices rewards. Indeed, conflict between avoidance and approach motivation is common, and, yet, in humans, simultaneous manipulation of threat and reward has rarely been studied. Rewards for approach and individual characteristics that impact appraisal of rewards, such as anhedonia, may contribute to maladaptive avoidance. Accordingly, this study takes a reverse translational approach, emphasizing ecological validity, to investigate responding in a dynamic approach-reward and avoid-threat conflict, examining the role of anhedonia and gender. The sample (N = 80) was comprised of 41 participants in the low anhedonia group (68.3% female) and 39 in the high anhedonia group (61.5% female). Participants completed a novel approach-avoid conflict task: the Dynamic Avoidance Task (DAT). Participants were tasked with the goal of retrieving coins in the face of a threatening robot. Threat and reward level were simultaneously manipulated: coin retrieval was either incentivized with monetary reward (reward) or was not incentivized with monetary reward (no reward) and threat was manipulated by varying the coin-to-threat distance (low, moderate, high threat). Avoidance was operationalized as longer response latency for first coin retrieval and fewer total coins retrieved, and higher fear responding as higher subjective distress and higher physiological arousal. Participants with high anhedonia retrieved fewer coins than those with low anhedonia (d = 0.46), but only when they were not incentivized with monetary reward. Additionally, women did not avoid more than men overall but did show slightly greater decreases in coins retrieved than men when comparing low threat to high threat (women: d = 1.57; men: d = 1.42). Anxious traits predicted subjective distress (b = .38) and physiological arousal (b = -.36) whereas reward propensity did not. In addition, reward, in general, lead to decreased avoidance and increased fear responding and, critically, rewards for approach blocked increased avoidance at higher threat during initial responding to the approach-avoid conflict (partial eta2 = .06 - .35). Thus, individuals with high anhedonia may be at greater risk for avoidance compared to those with low anhedonia, but only when approach is not maximally rewarding. Whereas anxiety impacts avoidance through fear responding, hedonic deficits can impact avoidance through a reward pathway. Thus, leveraging rewards by helping individuals identify rewarding properties and benefits of approaching anxiety-provoking situations may improve clinical outcomes for individuals with pathological avoidance.