Behavioral Facilitation: A Cognitive Model of Individual Differences in Approach Motivation Michael D. Robinson North Dakota State University Brian P. Meier Gettysburg College Maya Tamir Boston College Benjamin M. Wilkowski and Scott Ode North Dakota State University Approach motivation consists of the active, engaged pursuit of one’s goals. The purpose of the present three studies (N = 258) was to examine whether approach motivation could be cognitively modeled, thereby providing process-based insights into personality functioning. Behavioral facilitation was as- sessed in terms of faster (or facilitated) reaction time with practice. As hypothesized, such tendencies predicted higher levels of approach motivation, higher levels of positive affect, and lower levels of depressive symptoms and did so across cognitive, behavioral, self-reported, and peer-reported outcomes. Tendencies toward behavioral facilitation, on the other hand, did not correlate with self-reported traits (Study 1) and did not predict avoidance motivation or negative affect (all studies). The results indicate a systematic relationship between behavioral facilitation in cognitive tasks and approach motivation in daily life. Results are discussed in terms of the benefits of modeling the cognitive processes hypothesized to underlie individual differences motivation, affect, and depression. Keywords: personality, behavioral facilitation, reaction time, motivation, affect, depression Positive affect and behavioral facilitation are frequently thought to be outputs of the same approach-motivated system (Davidson, 1999; Lang, 1995; Panksepp, 1998). In support of this point, approach-linked variables are associated with both higher levels of positive affect and higher levels of behavioral facilitation over time. For example, dopamine injections in the rat are both hedo- nically rewarding (as established by self-stimulation and place preference studies) and linked to increased motoric activity (Pank- sepp, 1998; Wise & Bozarth, 1987). In studies with humans, there is a surprisingly strong relationship between diurnal variations in activity levels and diurnal variations in positive affect (Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999). That is, as activity level in- creases, so does positive affect, and visa versa. Such results es- tablish a potentially close link of positive affect to behavioral facilitation. A wider survey of multiple literatures reveals just how promis- ing this cognitive– behavioral model is (Robinson & Tamir, 2008). When individuals are engaged in goal pursuit, they not only perform better over time, but also experience higher levels of positive affect, flow, and creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, Abuham- deh, & Nakamura, 2005). In another literature, it has been shown that “action-oriented” individuals, relative to “state-oriented” in- dividuals, vigorously pursue task-defined goals and this vigorous pursuit is associated with benefits to both task performance and positive affect (Kuhl, 2000). In the social psychology literature, manipulations of positive affect have been shown to facilitate subsequent behavioral responding (Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999; Wilkowski & Robinson, 2006) and manipulations of activity level are causal in increasing subsequent levels of positive affect (Pronin & Wegner, 2006; Thayer, 2001). Clinical considerations support this close potential link of be- havioral facilitation to both approach motivation and positive affect. Depression has been psychometrically linked to lower lev- els of approach motivation and positive affect (Watson, 2000). Depressed individuals have also been shown to exhibit deficits in physical activity, both in general terms and in specific cognitive tasks (Sobin & Sackeim, 1997). Degenerative movement-related disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, are highly comorbid with depression (Lieberman, 2006) and effective treatments for such disorders mitigate both movement-related symptoms and levels of comorbid depression (Rempello, Chiechio, Raffaele, Vecchio, & Nicoletti, 2002). Bilateral damage to the lateral frontal cortex, linked to reduced levels of task focus and goal-persistence (Miller & Cohen, 2001), often results in symptoms such as lethargy and inaction that are more or less defining features of major depression (Saint-Cyr, Bronstein, & Cummings, 2002). Connections involving regions of the basal ganglia and the prefrontal cortex facilitate both procedural learning (Lieberman, 2000) and positive affect in response to incentives (Knutson & Wimmer, 2007). Regions of the basal ganglia are especially high in dopamine receptors (Knutson & Gibbs, 2007) and dopamine Michael D. Robinson, Benjamin M. Wilkowski, and Scott Ode, Psy- chology Department, North Dakota State University; Brian P. Meier, Psychology Department, Gettysburg College; Maya Tamir, Psychology Department, Boston College. Benjamin M. Wilkowski is now with the Psychology Department at the University of Wyoming. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael D. Robinson, Psychology Department, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105. E-mail: Michael.D.Robinson@ndsu.edu Emotion © 2009 American Psychological Association 2009, Vol. 9, No. 1, 70–82 1528-3542/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0014519 70 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.