Carver and White (1994)

Behavioural inhibition, behavioural activation and affective responses to impending reward and punishment:

The BIS/BAS Scales.

Introduction to BIS/BAS

• Gray’s theory of brain functions and behaviour.

• 2 neurological systems that form dimensions of personality.

• BIS = Behavioural Inhibition System• BAS = Behavioural Approach/Activation

System• Sensitivities said to be orthogonal

BIS

• Sensitive to signals of punishment, nonreward and novelty.

• Inhibits behaviour• May lead to negative

outcomes and is responsible for negative feelings.

BAS

• Sensitive to reward, nonpunishment and escape from punishment.

• Begin/movement towards goals

• Responsible for positive feelings

• Proneness to engage in goal directed efforts.

Assessment

• Problematic due to conceptual content of other theories not fitting theory.

• Vulnerability vs. Typical experience• TPQ – 3 dimensions resembling Gray’s theory.• Present study aims to develop and initial

validate a set of measures.

Study 1: Scale development

• Pool of items generated by conceptualisation of BIS and BAS functioning

• Developed 4 Subscales-BIS scale – 7 items-BAS drive scale – 5 items-BAS fun seeking scale – 4 items-BAS reward responsiveness scale – 4 items

• BIS independent of BAS• BAS scales all loaded strongly to 2nd factor

Study 2: Convergent and Discriminant Validity

• Newly developed scale was administered alongside many other measures.

• Strong Correlations found• Indication that scales are related but also

distinguishable from alternative measures.• Need to test if the scales predictive ability of

behaviour

Study 3: BIS sensitivity and the experience of anxiety

• Need to create a situation that engages BIS not BAS• Administered BIS/BAS, and other measures and a

task to evoke nervousness• Punishment Cue Manipulation• Found BIS scale to be significant predictor and

contributed unique variance over and above other measures.

• Construct validity for BIS scale

Study 4: BAS sensitivity and the experience of happiness

• Need to create a situation that engages BAS not BIS• Administered BIS/BAS, and other measures and a

task to evoke happiness• Found BAS scales to be significant predictor and

contributed unique variance over and above other measures, particularly Drive and Reward Responsiveness.

• Construct validity for BAS scales

Discussion

• Development of valid BIS/BAS scales that reflect individual differences in the sensitivity of the presumed underlying neurophysiological regulatory systems

• Superior predictions in comparisons among measures

• Future directions maybe in broader contexts

Action, Emotion & Personality: Emerging Conceptual Integration.Carver, Sutton & Scheier (2000)

In short…. A paper looking at how personality (specifically Extraversion & Neuroticism) can be associated with tendencies to chase goals (such

as getting a good job – MOTIVATION/ APPROACH) or tendencies to avoid threats (such as getting the sack – WITHDRAWAL/ AVOID) and how these may

be linked to our emotional state.

Carver et al (2000): Action, Emotion & Personality: Emerging Conceptual Integration.

• This paper looked at the idea that behaviour fundamentally consists of 2 regulatory systems which prompt our actions:

1. APPROACH SYSTEM – this manages our positive affect and goal pursuit

2. WITHDRAWAL SYSTEM – this manages our negative affect and our avoidance of threats and punishments.

• In the past it has been suggested that these 2 regulatory systems may underpin our personality (Dollard & Miller 1950)

• It has also been considered that our emotions (e.g. positive & negative affect) can drive our actions – i.e. our emotional state can prompt actions which have different aims (ie. MOTIVATE us to pursue goals or encourage us to AVOID “anti-goals”).

• Carver et al attempted to integrate action, personality and emotion

Approach & Avoidance – Behaviours & feeling qualities

• The main idea that approach and avoidance systems are the building blocks of our behaviour

• The points this paper highlights have been made by several other theorists. They are attempting to show how each of the other theories of behaviour may compliment each other.

Appetitive & Aversive – Motivational Behavioural Systems

• The APPROACH & WITHDRAWAL systems are thought to have different neural substrates and distinct influences on behaviour.

• Gray (1994):1. APPROACH (“appetitive”) system:

- responds to incentives and rewards and escape from punishment – this causes the individual to move toward goals.

- associated with release of dopamine & feelings of positive affect.

2. WITHDRAWAL (“aversive”) system- responds to threats and signals of punishment - its engagement inhibits behaviour, thus stifling movement.- associated with feelings of negative affect.

Affective States & Frontal Lobe Activation

• Gray (1994) attempted to understand the regulation of behaviour in response to incentives and threats; his focus was on action with implications for emotions arising as something of an after thought.

On the other hand however….• Davidson et al focused more on emotional

experiences & suggested that it is emotions which lead to motivational processes (action).

• Although Davidson et al’s start point was almost the opposite of Gray, both Gray & Davidson et al arrives at a similar conceptual position

• Davidson et al concluded that specialized neural substrates for APPROACH & WITHDRAWAL systems (& thus + & - affect) are lateralized in the left & right anterior regions of the cerebral cortex, respectively.

i.e. Approach & withdrawal and their concomitant affects (+ & -) are managed by 2 separate neural systems.

Discrepancy-Reducing & Discrepancy-Enlarging Feedback Processes

• Carver & Scheier – explored the view in which people are seen as organisations of self-regulating feed-back systems

- they believed that most human behaviour consists of attempts to create & maintain conformity to desired goal values.

• Discrepancy-reducing feedback processes- essentially APPROACH processes- the reference points in this feedback correspond well to

the goal construct.- home in on a target and are considered stable.

• Discrepancy-enlarging feedback processes» Essentially AVIOD processes» Attempt to create distance from goals» Idea of “anti-goals” (e.g. something we try to avoid such

as parking tickets) » Involve distancing self from the anti-goal & are therefore

in a sense unstable.

Discrepancy-Reducing & Discrepancy-Enlarging Feedback Processes cont…

• Eventually the 2 loops begin to work in conjunction

Pleasure as a sign you can attend to something else: Placing positive feelings within a general model of affect

Charles S. Carver (2003)

Affect: ‘Experience of valence, a subjective sense of positivity or negativity arising from an experience’(not emotion)

Theoretical model of affect proposed by Carver and Scheier (1990):

• Positive affects constitute important information for the people who experience them

• And plays an important regulating function in the flow of behaviour

Behaviour and Affect

• Behaviour is organised for moving toward or away from desired goals

• It is initiated by the experience of affect

Systems monitor not the approach and avoidance behaviours themselves but the effectiveness over time

Rate of progress compared to the Reference rate = Error signal

Error Signal

Error signal is the affective valence

• If the rate of progress is above the criterion (you are doing better than you need to)- positive affect arises

• If the rate of progress is below the criterion (you are doing worse than you need to)- negative affect arises

E.g: Performing badly in a work assignment compared to your peers you feel depressed

The Results of Affect

To change the error signal you have to make anadjustment in the rate of progress:

E.g: Performing badly in a work assignment you decide tospend a weekend working rather than going out withfriends

Therefore this assumes explicit links between behaviour and affect

Doing well Relief, Calmness

+

Approach Process Avoidance Process

-

Doing poorly Fear,

Anxiety

Doing well Elation,

+ Eagerness

-

Doing poorly Sadness,

Depression

(Neutral) (Neutral)

Positive Affect

• Although positive affect signals that we are doing better than we need to there is still a discrepancy which needs to be corrected

• To correct this subsequent effort needs to be reduced and people are likely to Coast

• This easing back means that the positive feeling is not sustained for very long for that particular goal domain

Why ‘Coast’?

The adaptive value for such a tendency lies in the factpeople have multiple concerns.• People do not optimise their performance on any one

domain, they would rather satisfy all of them• Coasting therefore allows for resources to be transferred

from a domain with positive affect to another with negative affect (or in the absence of that exploring new opportunities)

Therefore it is the feeling of affect that inspiresreprioritisation

Extreme Goal Setting and Vulnerability to Mania Among Undiagnosed Young Adults

Johnson & Carver (2006)

BackgroundBipolar Disorder • One or more manic episodes in the lifetime. A depressive

episode is not required for diagnosis but frequently occurs

Why study ambitious goal setting in relation to mania?• Bipolar disorder linked to above average attainment

e.g. those with affective psychosis, more likely to be professionals than schizophrenic patients (Stern, 1913)

Many factors may reduce achievement in mania…

… However Bipolar disorder is associated with periods of high accomplishment and above average lifetime attainment.

Possible reasons for the link?

• Bipolar disorder may relate to traits that promote achievement (Johnson, 2005)

• Anecdotal evidence and a handful of empirical studies support this

•Seems to be linked to vulnerability to the disorder: neither current manic symptoms nor positive affect correlate with achievement striving.

Rationale for this present study

1. Previous studies have not assessed goals directly, rather looked at patterns of achievement

2. Episodes of mania are damaging… is elevated goal striving in those with bipolar disorder just compensation?

3. Depression is common to those vulnerable to mania; need to control for vulnerability to depression also

Aim:

To explore measured life goals and incentive sensitivity in students AT RISK of bipolar disorder

Study will account for lifetime risk of mania and depression and also current manic and depressive symptoms

Methods

A series of self report questionnaires were administered during two sessions

Session 1

a) Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPA) Identifies those at risk of a manic episode. 48 true/ false items

b) Lifetime depressive symptoms (IDD-L)Identifies those vulnerable to depression. 45 items

c) Incentive and threat sensitivity (BIS/ BAS)

Session 2

d) Self-Rating Mania Index (SRMI)Measures current manic symptoms

e) Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)Measures current symptoms of depression

f) High Goals: 20 life goals chosen to be highly ambitious- aggregated into 5 factors using FA:

1. Popular fame2. Medical and educational pursuits3. Wealth (& a ‘broader’ sort of fame)4. Political power5. ‘Everyone you know will love you’ (one item)

g) Self Reported Scholastic Aptitude (SAT scores)

Results

Risk of Mania– associated with all three scales of the BAS; fun seeking,

drive & reward responsiveness– And 3 types of high goals; popular fame, political influence

and financial success

Popular fame and financial success remained robust after controlling for current mania and depression symptoms and vulnerability to depression

Association with goals was largely independent of the link between risk of mania and incentive sensitivity.

Puzzle?• Manic Episodes typically associated with higher social activity, but

risk of mania was not found to be related to social goals…

… Study 2• Higher goals measure extended to 30 items; to include items related

to close personal and family relationships.Revised factor structure:1. Popular fame2. Idealised relationships with partner/ family3. Positive impact on world wellbeing4. Political Influence5. Relations with friends6. Financial success7. Creativity, personal fulfilment, self actualisation

Results - Study 2

Added value?

• Risk of mania and interpersonal goals were not closely related, despite their ‘puzzle’

However, with inclusion of the new items; risk of mania was associated with setting goals related to creative accomplishment

Relation between risk of mania and goal setting was strongest for goals that were endorsed more rarely by people lower in mania vulnerability

Discussion

• The link between risk of mania and ambitious goal setting appears to be robust

• Risk of mania was more closely related with extrinsic goals• It was also associated with more setting more ‘unusual’ goals… May

not be just extrinsic goals …what are we missing?

Limitations

• Reliance on self-report measures.. Alternatives are suggested• Undergrads, due to time in life may be more sensitive to thinking

about goals and less experienced in ‘dismissing’ extreme life goals• Questionable factor structure of high goals measure?

Negative Affects Deriving From the

Behavioural Approach SystemCharles S. Carver

Background

• Previously unipolar dimensions idea of BAS scale popular, ( Watson et al, 1999)

• People can be more sensitive to a Behavioural Approach System or a Behavioural Inhibition System, (BAS/BIS – approach/avoidance process)

• Carver and Scheier suggest human behaviour reflects feedback process, where feedback loops monitor the effectiveness of movement towards incentives.

• Suggests either type of motive (approach/avoidance) can give rise to either valence of affect, (positive or negative), depending on how well the action serving the motive is going.

Approach and Sadness

• Suggestive evidence that sadness is linked to approach – Depression relates to the experience of loss or failure to attain

incentives, as opposed to – Avoidance orientation which tends to evoke calmness with success

and elevated anxiety at failure, (Higgins) – Self – discrepancy theory, (Higgins) pursuing ideal as an approach

process.• Approach and anger –

– Link between anger and fear? (Fight or flight) OR– Anger as blockage of a desired goal– Anger symptom of mania, which is a phenomena believed to involve

overreaction of the approach system

Present Research

• Goal: to obtain more evidence that BAS is involved in the creation of certain negative affects.

• Methodology Used – – BAS/BIS individual differences in sensitivity. – If the affect is either BIS or BAS driven, then it should relate to

individual differences in either BIS or BAS.

• Used Carver and White’s (1994) BIS and BAS scales.

Study One: Frustrative Nonreward

• Procedure• Ppts first completed BIS/BAS scales• Subsequently, they were led to believe they’d receive a reward if

they performed well at a task; however, then failed to do so, (task was impossible, all feedback scores were identical for each ppt).

• Affect information taken before, midway through the task, and after they found they had failed.

• Results• Factor analysis revealed two factors

1. “Frustration” – loadings .80+ from ‘annoyed’ ‘discouraged’2. “Sadness” – loadings .90+ from ‘depressed’ ‘sad’

Results contd and Discussion

• Fun – seeking was a prospective correlate of both: Sad (r= .34 p<.01) Frus (r= .29, p<.03)

• Two hierarchical regression analysis revealed that fun – seeking was a far better predictor for both factors than BIS.

• Indicates failure to attain reward had desired effect on affective experience

• Intensity of feelings related to levels of fun – seeking but not BIS sensitivity thus supporting the idea that both positive and negative feelings can arise from the approach system.

Study Two : Anger

• Idea: If anger stems from thwarted approach it should relate to BAS sensitivity.

• Procedure:• Completed ZKPQ, scale that focuses explicitly on aggression

and hostility as a personality trait.• Ppts exposed to anger eliciting hypothetical situations, told

to “imagine the events are happening to you” then answered a set of questions concerning nervousness and anger as responses to the situations.

Results and Discussion

• Factor analysis of emotional reactions yielded two factors: anger and nervousness.

• Higher levels of BIS related to reports of greater nervousness: BIS was a sig. stronger predictor of nervousness than any BAS scale.

• Reward Responsiveness was a sig. stronger predictor of anger than BIS. • Results consistent with the idea that anger derives from the approach

system- but BAS not the sole predictor.– Suggestive that anger involves a system beyond that concerning

pursuit of incentives, possibly a system that regulates the extent to which others are taken into account in the course of such pursuit.

Study 3: Terrorism and Anger

• Rectify issues with hypothetical situations not evoking realistic responses, a study was conducted soon after September 11th. (Ppts completed BIS/BAS tests)

• Ppts who had not lost anyone in the attacks completed a survey of reactions containing two ‘fear’ and two ‘anger’ items among fillers.

• Results:– Factor analysis confirmed two factors anger and fear.– BIS was significant predictor of fear– Drive scale made a sig. contribution to the prediction of anger,

contribution of BIS was also marginally significant

Drawbacks

• All studies relied solely on self reports as dependent measures.• The individual differences approach cannot confirm cause and effect.• Effects were only moderately strong, a good deal on invariance left

unexplained.• BAS related scales related to the affect in each study, but it was not the

same scale across studies.

– Possible explanation is that the three focus on different aspects of the approach process

– E.g Fun – Seeking = eagerness for new incentives, so predicted more distress when the incentive never came.

Discussion

• Again, reiterates the notion that anger derives, at least in part, from the approach system.

• As in Study 2, two different negative affects related most strongly to different dimensions of personality, one to incentive motivation and the other to threat motivation.

General Discussion

• All results indicate that feelings relating to the approach system are not always positive, contrary to the unipolar view that dominates discussions of affect dimensionality.

• If anger and anxiety co-occur, why do they relate to different behaviour regulation systems?

• Many situations disrupt pursuit of an incentive whilst simultaneously creating a threat of harm.

• Both affects have adaptive properties

Adaptive Properties

• Situation: Inevitable impending failure, -ve affect one of sadness to encourage disengaging and not wasting resources.

• Situation: Reparable, anger could be hope that things could be set right, thus frustration etc feelings to prompt action and struggle to overcome obstacles.

• (See paper for graph – doing well above criterion, doing poorly below criterion, engagement along x axis, greater for anger/frustration, less intense for depression/dejection as feeling of hopelessness)

Ultimately the research indicates that the approach system is negative as well as positive feelings,

meaning an adequate theory must accommodate a mechanism for the creation of affects of both

valences.

Adaptive Self-Regulation of Unattainable Goals: Goal

Disengagement, Goal Reengagement and Subjective

Well-Being

Wrosch, Scheier, Miller, Schulz and Carver (2003)

Background

• Optimism, belief in competencies and persistence related to well-being and health.

• Beneficial if able to abandon unattainable goals + reengage in new goals → reduce distress, continued sense of purpose.

• Adaptive self-regulation of unattainable goals depends on existence of alternatives.

Why are goals unattainable?

• Ageing – opportunities for achieving goals constrained by socio-structural and biological factors (e.g. retirement age, menopause).

• Negative life-events (e.g. death of spouse, divorce).

• Limited resources – selective investment required → may disengage from leisure goals to secure family or career goals (consider Maslow’s Hierarchy)

Disengagement can…

• Help avoid failure experiences.

• Redefine the unattainable goal as not necessary for satisfaction.

• Free time and energy resources.

Disengagement = high well-being in:

• People who have developed AIDS.

• Parents of handicapped children.

• People who divorce in later life.

• Post-menopausal women without children.

Maintenance of unrealistic intentions and goals relates to distress + depression.

Reengagement is…

• Identifying alternative goals + initiating activities to pursue these goals.

• Unattainable goals may be problematic if no alternative goals exist to alleviate negative consequences of failure.

• Independent of disengagement:1. May disengage + reengage in new goal much later.2. Unattainable goal may overlap with engagement with new

goal.

The Present Study

• Examined goal disengagement, reengagement + subjective well-being.

• Study 1 = general associations

• Study 2 = age-differential associations

• Study 3 = specific constraint on goals as opposed to more general constraint in 1 + 2 (parents of children with cancer).

Study One

• 115 UG students aged 17 – 23 years.• 69% male• 64% Caucasian.

1. Disengagement – ease of reducing effort + relinquishing commitment to unattainable goals (IV1).

2. Reengagement – tendency to identify + begin active pursuit of new goals (IV2).

3. Subjective well-being – perceived stress; purpose in life; self-mastery; intrusive thoughts about problems (DV).

Study One

• Socio-demographics = 8-15% variance in well-being.• Women = more perceived stress + intrusive thoughts; less self-

mastery.• Non-Caucasians = more perceived stress; less self-mastery +

purpose in life.

• Disengagement (DE) and Reengagement (RE) = 11-23% variance in well-being.

• Both independently predict low perceived stress + intrusive thoughts; high self-mastery.

• RE additionally predicted purpose in life.

Study One

• RE especially relates to high self-mastery + low perceived stress among students who found DE difficult.

• Highest perceived stress + lowest self-mastery in students poor at both DE + RE.

• DE + RE are protective factors for well-being when faced with unattainable goals.

• RE can compensate for some of distress if continue to pursue unattainable goal.

Study Two – Age Differences

• 62 young adults 19 – 35 years.• 58 older adults 55 – 89 years.• 56% female. 46% highly educated.

1. Disengagement – as Study 1.

2. Reengagement – as Study 1.

3. Subjective well-being – Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (focus on past year)

Study Two – Age Differences • Socio-demographics = 6% variance in well-being.• Men + more educated = better well-being.

• Older adults = better well-being.

• RE especially associated with well-being among young people who found DE difficult.

• Lower well-being in older adults who found DE easy but RE hard.

• Overall = higher scores on RE than DE.

• Older adults = higher on DE + RE than young adults.

Study Two – Age Differences

• Differential patterns between DE, RE + well-being in young + older adults.

• DE only better for older adults if followed by RE – if no alternative goals, maybe better to continue to pursue unattainable goals.

• DE + RE easier for older adults → goal management processes change across life-span.

Study Three – Cancer Patients

• 20 parents of kids with cancer – mean 36.9 yrs.• 25 parents of healthy kids – mean 37.6 yrs.• 68% female. 88% Caucasian.

1. Disengagement – as Study 2.

2. Reengagement – as Study 2.

3. Subjective well-being – Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (focus on past week)

Study Three – Cancer Patients

• More educated Ps = less depression.• Parents of kids with cancer = more depressed.• Ps with better RE = less depressed.

• Parents who tended to be able to disengage from unattainable goals + reengage in new goals were less depressed – this was especially true for parents of kids with cancer.

• DE + RE = important factors when facing unexpected life events requiring adjustment of important goals.

Study Three – Cancer patients

• Parents of kids with cancer who find DE easy but RE difficult may benefit from interventions to:

• Prevent low well-being.• Help adaptively manage life-goals.

Discussion

• Variation exists in people’s general tendency to disengage + reengage…

• …these differences are relevant to well-being.

• Capacity to RE in new goals is a protective factor is continue to pursue unattainable goals.

• Opportunities to pursue new goals decline with age – failure to reengage is detrimental to older people.

Finally (part 1!)

• Further study into alternative goals:– Pursuit of multiple goals may make adaptation

to loss of one goal easier.– Multiple goals may make DE less threatening

as back-up goals exist.– BUT acquisition of new goals may be bad if

resources are stretched too thin.

Finally (part 2)

• Personality was controlled for in these studies; certain personality profiles may help or hinder DE + RE.

• Study 2 results could reflect cohort effect.• No causality inferred – well-being could drive

reports of DE + RE…

THE END