The appetitive motivation scale and other BAS measures in the prediction of Approach and Active Avoidance Luke D. Smillie * , Chris J. Jackson School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia Received 10 February 2004; received in revised form 1 July 2004; accepted 21 September 2004 Available online 30 November 2004 Abstract The Appetitive Motivation Scale (Jackson & Smillie, 2004) is a new trait conceptualisation of GrayÕs (1970, 1991) Behavioural Activation System. In this experiment we explore relationships that the Appetitive Motivation Scale and other measures of GrayÕs model have with Approach and Active Avoidance responses. Using a sample of 144 undergraduate students, both Appetitive Motivation and Sensitivity to Reward (from the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire, SPSRQ; Torrubia, Avila, Molto, & Ceseras, 2001), were found to be significant predictors of Approach and Active Avoidance response latency. This confirms previous experimental validations of the SPSRQ (e.g., Avila, 2001) and provides the first experimental evidence for the validity of the Appetitive Motivation scale. Consistent with interactive views of GrayÕs model (e.g., Corr, 2001), high SPSRQ Sensitivity to Punishment diminished the relationship between Sensitivity to Reward and our BAS criteria. Measures of BIS did not however interact in this way with the appetitive motivation scale. A surprising result was the failure for any of Carver and WhiteÕs (1994) BAS scales to correlate with RST criteria. Implications of these findings and potential future directions are discussed. Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: BAS; Impulsivity; RST; Appetitive Motivation scale; Approach; Active avoidance 0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.09.013 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 3365 6230; fax: +61 7 3365 4466. E-mail address: luke@psy.uq.edu.au (L.D. Smillie). www.elsevier.com/locate/paid Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 981–994