To survive, all animals, ranging from amoeba to humans, must approach and avoid certain situations, objects, and possibilities. (1)

All organisms are hard-wired or preprogrammed to make immediate approach-avoidance responses to particular inputs/stimuli. (1)

DO:  Approach and Avoid is basic to the human experience.  

Evolution has been littered with the remains of species that have failed to acquire one or more ways for accurately determining the beneficial/harmful impacts of environmental stimuli.....as such, all animate life, from the single-celled amoeba on up, is equipped with at least some basic form of approach-avoidance mechanism that produces and/or regulates movement toward potentially beneficial and positive stimuli and away from potentially harmful and negative stimuli. (1)

An accumulated body of research indicates that people evaluate most/all encountered stimuli on a good or bad dimension and that they do so immediately, without intention or awareness

Automatic Evaluation Effect

DO:  Most all of the Approach Avoid Analysis that humans do is under the hood (subconscious).  However, by learning more about Approach and Avoid, we can become more willing to approach (more patient, more tolerable to others, make better choices, and capture more knowledgeable of what is occurring around us) 

Avoidance Motivation:  "the energization of behavior by, or the direction of behavior away from, negative stimuli"  

The energization occurs when the brain's fear system is activated by a threatening stimulus.

Using Detached Observation, here are 12 purposes of why humans have built-in Approach Avoid (No particular order - Getting to the basics of its existence).  As you go through this site, reflect on more purposes of our built-in Approach/Avoid systems.

Survive - Using Approach Avoid behavior allows us to survive by approaching beneficial inputs (food/shelter) and avoiding harmful inputs (predators/toxins).

Energy - By avoiding unnecessary risks and conserving energy, we increase our chances of survival.

Adapt - Approach avoid behavior allows us to adapt to new or changing environments by exploring potential resources while minimizing threats.

Find Mates - Better use of approach avoid allows us to find mates, reproduce, develop families, and pass on genes.

Natural Selection - History favored the individuals and groups that displayed better use of approach avoid behaviors - Thus leading to certain behaviors that were passed on to the next generation.

Social - Approach Avoid behavior plays a crucial role in navigating social hierarchies, forming alliances, and avoiding conflict within groups and members of outgroups.

Learning and Memory - We learn and put to memory the behaviors that will suit us in future similar situations.

Resource Competition - Approach Avoid helps us compete for limited resources with proper energy use.

Cognitive Development - We seek to learn better ways for future approach avoid behaviors to increase our chances to survive (physical and within culture).

Communicate - We learn to use approach and avoid communication to best navigate our surroundings.

Decision Conflict - We learn to use approach and avoid when multiple decisions are occurring at the same time.

Group - We use approach avoid to develop cohesion in our groups to survive.

Appetitive Behavior and Consummatory Behavior.

Two components of behavioral approach:  appetitive behavior and consummatory behavior.  An example can be of an unsafe food stimuli that will direct action away from the mouth. This is avoidance and escape behavior.  The striatum contains the memory systems for sensory-motor associations.  It stores both approach and avoidance information.

Appetitive behaviors are the more variable, searching phase of a behavioral sequence. Consummatory behaviors are the stereotypic phase and tend to result in the termination of a behavioral sequence.

"The primitive similarities in appetitive and defensive behaviors suggest that the mediating neural circuits are overlapping and involve many of the same neural structures.  Brain imaging studies have supported this view.  Thus, although we might expect to find specific reward or fear centers in the brain, more often similar structures are found to be active in both pleasant and unpleasant emotions, and variations in activation magnitude are more related to response vigor than to the direction of action." (1)

"facial muscle activity during picture viewing is a marker of whether a cue activates the appetitive or defensive system.  Corrugator (frown) muscle activity is reliably heightened for unpleasant pictures... whereas zygomatic (smile) muscle activity is greatest for pictures judged highest in pleasantness.  Heart rate is also responsive to the specific neural system activated.  Unpleasant pictures generally prompt marked deceleration during viewing compared to pleasant pictures." (1)

Humans show attention and action readiness when confronted with motivational inputs (in life and the laboratory) responding with heightened attention to appetitive and aversive events even if the cues are not real and in person but are media representations.

DO:  100 years ago, 1000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago, and so on.  The human brain never had to determine the difference between digital and real inputs

Depending on the level of stimulus aversion by a person (threat, apprehension), the responses to a threat input will vary with the level of defense system activation... the behaviors that may result could look fearful (avoid), angry (approach), or, given overwhelming stress and no available coping behavior, hopelessness, and depression.

DO:  Every person has their own brain connections that impact their approach avoid decisions on threats.

Extraversion and Neuroticism

Extraversion >   The state of or tendency toward being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self : a personality trait or style characterized by a preference for or orientation to engaging socially with others.

Neuroticism >   A broad personality trait dimension representing the degree to which a person experiences the world as distressing, threatening, and unsafe. 

Positive Affect and Negative Affect

Positive Affect (PA) - Appetitive stimuli - positive reward cues, signals of safety.  Enthusiasm, interest, pleasantness, or relief that can be termed Positive Affect.

Negative Affect (NA) - Aversive motivated states.  Avoidance motivation or withdrawal that is elicited by aversive stimuli - threat cues, punishment, etc.  Experienced as negative emotions ranging from anxiety , anger, frustration, and disgust.

People who are high in NA will exhibit, on average, higher levels of distress, anxiety, annoyance, irritability, hostility, worry, anxiety, fear, and dissatisfaction, and they tend to focus on the unpleasant characteristics of themselves, the world, the future, and other people. (1)

People that are high on the trait PA dimension are characterized by a high level of energy and engagement with the environment, particularly the social environment.  Others see them as enthusiastic, optimistic, and actively involved with life.  They tend to have optimistic expectations about the future and are highly sociable, preferring the company of others to isolation. (1)

"..over a dozen studies have reported correlations between extraversion and PA and neuroticism and NA suggesting that these two traits have strong affective components" (1)

"Extraverts consistently report more PA in response to positive-mood-inducing stimuli, and high-neuroticism persons report more NA in response to negative-mood-inducing stimuli" (1)

Positive Aspect promotes exploratory behavior.  They will want to "play" with the environment and seek others who wish to enjoy these experiences as well. (1)

When examining specific brain areas that showed increased activation to negative images relative to positive images, researchers found that neuroticism correlated with reduced activation in the left mid temporal gyrus and the left mid frontal gyrus.  These results are consistent with earlier imaging studies of depressed persons (a condition linked to neuroticism), which identified reduced metabolism in the left frontal cortex associated with depression. (1)

DO:  A key point on a approach and avoid >  The spectrum of approach and avoid varies widely depending on the individual.  A particular input is approach for some and avoid for others.  Also, changes in the brain mean that it could be approach today but avoid tomorrow.

Abundant evidence suggests a prefrontal cortical asymmetry in PA and NA.  Assessed with EEG, PA is associated with left prefrontal cortex activation, whereas NA is associated with greater relative right prefrontal cortex activation. (1)

Definitions of BAS and BIS

BAS>  A behavioral approach system (BAS) is believed to regulate appetitive motives, in which the goal is to move toward something desired. 

BIS> A behavioral avoidance (or inhibition) system (BIS) is said to regulate aversive motives, in which the goal is to move away from something unpleasant.   

Extraversion, reward sensitivity, reward expectancy, and BAS measures share a common core that appears related to a tendency to approach

Neuroticism, harm avoidance, punishment sensitivity, and BIS measures share a common theme that is shown to be related to avoidance motivation.

Several brain areas differentially respond to positive affective stimuli as a function of extraversion.  The dopamine system also plays a role, with mesolimbic and mesocortical dopaminergic pathways showing more activation during reward-directed behavior.  (1)

The heritability of approach-related personality traits may be due to the genetic structure underlying dopamine functioning... ex.  "different genotypes of DRD4 may lead to differential levels of expressed novelty seeking and extraversion through the differential activation of dopaminergic pathways." (1)

In terms of avoidance-related behavior, glucose metabolism rates in the amygdala predict some aspects of negative affective reactions and predict the differential ability to understand NA. (1)

Individual differences in baseline activation of the right prefrontal cortex predict individual differences in negative affective functioning as well as behavior inhibition. (1)

"Neuroticism (and depression) has been associated with the activation levels of the serotonin transporter gene 5 - HT.  This gene appears to moderate the effects of stress on depression, rumination, and activation of brain areas associated with NA." (1)

DO:  As can be seen with the information provided so far at this site, approach and avoid is complicated.  There is so much under the hood that is happening to a person that is unknown to everyone what will cause that person to approach or avoid.  As such, big picture tendencies can be the best way to start and then continue to keep learning as humans discover more. 

Achievement Motivation

Achievement motivation (Approach) may be defined as > the energization and direction of behavior that is oriented toward the attainment of competence or the avoidance of incompetence.

"Gray's theory has many interesting implications.  For example, let's say you want to motivate someone to engage in some behavior, say to quit smoking.  You could present your arguments in term of the rewards of quitting (food will taste better) or the aversive consequences of continuing (shortness of breath).  For some persons (those with strong BAS) you should emphasize the rewards of quitting (food will taste better, they will feel healthier, they will will live longer).  On the other hand, with individuals who have a strong BIS, it might work better to emphasize the threatening or aversive aspects of not quitting (multiple diseases, health complications, early death)." (2)

Dopamine and Acetylcholine as it relates to Approach - Avoid

Approach involves the release of dopamine (DA) in the accumbens, whereas  Acetylcholine (ACh) is correlated with, or causes, avoidance.  ACh creates a state that is at least inhibitory and sometimes aversive. (1)

DO:  More research will be added on Dopamine and Acetylcholine because of their impact on Approach and Avoid behavior

Over the last three decades, it has become increasingly clear that dopamine (DA) contributes heavily to brain mechanisms that allow the pursuit of a great variety of positive rewards and contributes to reinforcing effects that impact appetitive learning.  This can also lead to a variety of addictions. (1)

Dopamine is involved in both positive and negative reinforcement. (1)

Five examples of approach and avoidance are reviewed.  On the approach side:  eating, positive conditioned stimulus, brain self-stimulation, drug intake, and sugar binging.  These are contrasted with opposing behaviors, which are in the avoidance category:  satiation, negative conditioned stimuli, behavior depression, drug withdrawal, and sugar withdrawal.  All the approach situations have DA (dopamine) release in common.  All the avoidance situations feature a rise of accumbens ACh (Acetylcholine). (1)

Past Experiences

In a very short time, the human brain reconstructs bits and pieces of past experiences as your neurons pass electrochemical information back and forth in an ever-shifting, complex network. 

Inside the human skull, beyond our awareness, billions of neurons are trying to give these lines and blobs meaning.  The brain is searching through a lifetime of past experiences, issuing thousands of guesses at once, weighing probabilities, and trying to answer the question - "What are these wavelengths of light most like?"

We interpret a combination of what's out there in the world and what's constructed by our brain.

Scientists are now fairly certain that the human brain actually begins to sense the moment-to-moment changes in the world around us before light waves, chemicals, and other sense data hit our brain.

The brain issues predictions and checks them against the sense data coming from the world and from the body.  If a brain has predicted well, then neurons are already firing in a pattern that matches the incoming sense data.  That means this sense data itself has no further use beyond confirming a brain's predictions.  What we see, hear, smell, and taste in the world and feel within our body in that moment are completely constructed in inside our head.  By prediction, a brain has efficiently prepared us to act.

DO:  A brain is wired to initiate actions before we are aware of them.  IT IS IMPORTANT FOR THE BRAIN TO PREDICT WELL.  Bad predictions mean energy spent on correcting the bad prediction.  

People around us influence our body budget and rewire our brains.  A brain changes its wiring after new experiences, a process called plasticity.  Microscopic parts of our neurons change gradually every day through tuning and pruning.

We also adjust each other's body budgets by our actions.  If we raise our voices or even our eyebrows, we can affect what goes on inside other people's bodies, such as their heart rate or the chemicals carried in their bloodstream.

When people work in an environment where they can learn to trust one another, they'll have less burden on their body budgets, saving resources that can be invested in new ideas.

DO:  Because we are constantly changing due to the interactions we have with others and the world, it also changes our individual approach and avoid actions going forward.

There really aren't 'centers' in the brain 'for' particular behaviors. (2)

DO  We humans like to put things in categories.  It saves energy and makes life simple.  However, the brain does not care that we want it simple.  How the brain works is complicated and much is still unknown.   

Referring to brain-body budgeting, brain "prediction beats reaction"... those throughout human history who predicted accurately were more likely to be around vs those who waited to react. (3)

The human brain is not for rationality, emotion, imagination, creativity, or empathy.  The human brains most important job is to control the body - to manage allostasis.  It does this by predicting energy needs before they arise so we can efficiently make worthwhile movements and survive. (3)

Allostasis > Automatically predicting and preparing to meet the body's needs before they arise.  (3)

The brain is a network - a collection of parts that are connected to work as a single unit.

The human brain is similar to an Airport Hub.  Hubs are for the backbone of communication throughout the brain.  It allows most neurons to participate globally even as they focus more locally.

Amygdala

The brain region (amygdala) is most involved in feeling afraid/anxious and is most involved in generating aggression. The amygdala, specifically the BLA (basolateral amygdala), gets projections from all the sensory systems. (2)

Some sensory information entering the brain takes a shortcut, bypassing the cortex & going directly to the amygdala.  The amygdala can be informed about something scary before the cortex has a clue. (1)

DO:  This shortcut of bypassing the cortex to the amygdala happens all the time.  As an example, you witness someone who says something quickly in anger that they later regret what they said or how they acted.  Much of their reaction is at the subconscious level.  Sometimes, we can catch ourselves before we say something.  

The amygdala receives news of fear and aggression - pain.  This is mediated by projections from an ancient, core brain structure, the 'periaqueductal gray' (PAG)... Unpredictable pain, rather than the pain itself, is what activates the amygdala. (2)

The amygdala also receives a projection from the 'insular cortex', a part of the prefrontal cortex. (1)

DO   The insular cortex does both moral and gustatory disgust.  Here is a link to a YouTube Video of Robert Sapolsky discussing this:

LINK TO VIDEO

Reminder, so much of the disgust at the insular cortex is beyond our awareness

There is a considerable amount of evidence suggesting that the amygdala is critical for learning, storage, and expression of fear conditioning. (1)

The amygdala/hippocampus interface

The amygdala talks to other limbic structures, including the hippocampus - the amygdala learns fears and the hippocampus learns detached, dispassionate facts... The hippocampus decides whether an input is worth storing for future use - this can depend on whether the amygdala got worked up over it. (2)

DO  The hippocampus storing the input for later use is vital to future Approach or Avoid 

The amygdala communicates issues of emotion, including aversion and fear.  The nearby ventral hippocampus conveys information regarding emotional context.  The dorsal hippocampus provides spatial information and related memories.  The taste associational cortex, provides taste signals that are already modified by sensory-specific satiety signals.  The thalamus relays information from the energy control systems in the hypothalamus and the hypothalamus has some projections straight to the NAc (nucleus accumbens).  The limbic areas send information to the striatum to make go - no go decisions (approach/avoid) for action. (1)

The Frontal Cortex

It includes working memory, executive function, gratification postponement, long-term planning, regulation of emotions, and reining in impulsivity.  The frontal cortex makes you do the more difficult action when it is the right thing to do. The frontal cortex is not fully online until people are in their mid-twenties. (2)

Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) chooses between conflicting options - Example > Coke or Pepsi... and often the conflict is between a decision driven by cognition and emotions.

Once it has decided, the PFC sends orders via projections to the rest of the frontal cortex, sitting just behind it. Those neurons then communicate with the 'premotor cortex', sitting just behind it, which then passes it to the 'motor cortex', then communicates with the muscles - and a behavior occurs (Approach - Avoid). (2)

Frontal cortical neurons are generalists, with broad patterns of projections, which makes for more work.  This takes a lot of energy.  When it is working hard, the frontal cortex has an extremely high metabolic rate and rates of activation of genes related to energy production. (2)

Frontal neurons are expensive cells - Note> Expensive cells are vulnerable cells. 

DO  Energy is so important.  This has huge impacts on human Approach - Avoid behavior:  Frontal neurons are expensive cells, and expensive cells are vulnerable cells.  Being more advanced as a human - Higher levels of thinking and having empathy, perspective-taking, and compassion, require the use of this energy.

Increased cognitive load on the frontal cortex, and people become less prosocial, less charitable or helpful, and are more likely to lie. (2)

DO  Another person having too many inputs and large cognitive load is mostly dark to us - We also do not know what the limits of cognitive load are on the people around us - It varies from person to person.  Expect more avoid when a person is overloaded.

When people are under stress, distraction, or heavy cognitive load, the two streams can dissociate (Ex. Do X and Never Do X)... The chance you will do precisely the wrong thing rises not despite your best efforts but because of a stress-boggled version of them. (2)

DO  Better approach decisions become challenged under heavy stress and cognitive load

The structure and function of the frontal cortex varies enormously among individuals - the resting metabolic rate in the PFC varies approximately thirtyfold among people. (2)

Dopamine

The dopaminergic system is about reward- various pleasurable stimuli activate tegmental neurons, triggering their release of dopamine.

Chronic stress or pain depletes dopamine and decreases the sensitivity of dopamine neurons to stimulation, producing the defining symptom of depression - the inability to feel pleasure.

DO  Having too many stressful and depressing inputs will lower approach behavior with the drop of motivation and lower dopamine

In a study, a monkey has learned that when he presses a lever ten times, he gets a raisin as a reward. That's just happened, and as a result, ten units of dopamine are released in the accumbens. The monkey then presses the lever ten times and gets TWO raisins.  20 units of dopamine are released.  And as the monkey continues to get paychecks of two raisins, the size of the dopamine response returns to 10 units.  Now reward the monkey with only a single raisin, and dopamine levels decline.

Get more reward and/or get it sooner than expected, and there's a big burst; less and/or later, a decrease.

DO:   Important information to reflect on how dopamine drives behavior> It’s not about reward, but its anticipation.   

In a study where subjects were shown an item to purchase... they were told the price - if it was less than what they were willing to spend, there was activation of the emotional vmPFC - if it was expensive in their view, there would be activation of the disgust-related insular cortex.

DO  At a level unknown to us, we have predictions from the brain (expectations).  What happens next triggers reactions internally.  Our emotions can there share externally to others what was interpreted internally.  Positive or negative.

Once reward contingencies are learned, dopamine is less about reward than about its anticipation

Dopamine - along with reward anticipation, it also is the fuel of goal-directed behavior needed to obtain a reward - dopamine 'binds' the value of a reward > to resulting work

DO  People have different levels of motivation.  If you manage people, their internal chemicals are dark to you.  Communication is a key start to discovering what the levels might be.

Serotonin

Low serotonin impacts impulsive aggression, as well as cognitive impulsivity - difficulty in temporal discounting or trouble inhibiting a habitual response

Nearly all serotonin is synthesized in one brain region (the raphe nucleus), which projects to the following: the tegmentum, accumbens, PFC, and amygdala, where serotonin enhances dopamine's impact on goal-directed behavior.

The striatum receives inputs that use serotonin to arouse it, norepinephrine to generate focused or scanning attention, and dopamine (DA) to signal salient events and promote action. (1)

Under the radar

The more expensive a supposed (placebo) painkiller, the more effective people report the placebo to be.  If you ask a person their favorite detergent - if they've just read a paragraph containing the word ocean, they're more likely to choose the brand Tide.  Over a course of a few seconds, sensory cues can shape your behavior at the unconscious level

The human brain is incredibly attuned to skin color.  In tests, people were exposed to a flash of a face for less than a tenth of a second (one hundred milliseconds), too short to know that they have seen something.  Then, have the person guess the race of the pictured face - there is a better-than-even chance that they will guess accuracy.

There is more activation in the amygdala when a person is considered racist (according to implicit test of race bias)

A person of white skin color sees a black face shown at a subliminal speed, the amygdala activates.  If the face is shown long enough for a conscious processing, the anterior cingulate and the cognitive dlPFC then activate to inhibit the amygdala

DO  In human history, we were in small tribes of similar race and beliefs.  Within just a couple hundred years, the worlds population skyrocketed and we are now a mix of races, beliefs, and cultures.  As can be seen from above, two things are true:

1.  The brain does not evolve at the speed in which human population rose and spread throughout the globe.  Seeing people who are different than us impacts all of us at the subconscious level.  Due to the need for survival, negative is more advantageous than positive.

2.  Based on brain structure and upbringing (experiences that teach the brain), we all move forward at different speeds when it comes to interpreting someone who is different than 'us'.

When an input enters the brain... Most of it is funneled through the sensory way station in the thalamus and then to the appropriate cortical region (Visual or auditory cortex) for the slow, arduous process of decoding light pixels, sound waves, etc.  -  into something identifiable.  And then the information is recognized for what it is and then it is passed to the limbic system

Information hits the amygdala fast but it  is often inaccurate

DO:  Repeat- Information that hits the amygdala is fast but is often inaccurate.  Makes sense when you consider the bias to and importance of survival.

The gender of a face is processed within 150 milliseconds.  The same goes for interpretation of social status

After a 40 millisecond exposure, people accurately distinguish high from low status presentations

DO:  First Impressions matter!  Impressive how quickly the brain interprets another person in milliseconds.  At all times, we can see that the brain wants to know right away what is happening.  

The human olfactory system - roughly 40 percent of a rat's brain is devoted to olfactory processing, versus 3 percent in humans

The human  olfactory system sends more direct projections to the limbic system than other sensory system

If people around you smell scared, your brain moves toward concluding that you are too.

DO:  There is just so much that is beyond our conscious awareness.  When was the last time you remember smelling fear?

Pain does not cause aggression - it amplifies our preexisting tendencies toward aggression.... Pain makes aggressive people more aggressive, while doing the opposite to unaggressive individuals

Various studies show that when the frontal cortex labors hard on some cognitive task, we tend to be more aggressive and less empathetic, charitable, and honest

DO:  When you want someone to be more charitable and empathetic, remember it takes energy.  There has to be a reason to extend resources.

When we are hungry, we become less charitable and more aggressive

Human behavior is changed by situational labels - call a game 'Wall Street Game', and people become less cooperative.  Call a game 'Community Game' and it does the opposite. .. have people read  random word lists before playing - with warm fuzzy words in the list - help, harmony, fair, mutual - fosters cooperation... while words like rank, power, fierce, and inconsiderate foster the opposite

DO  Words matter as the brain attempts to understand what is happening in the world.  Post positive words at work and at home. 

if you're hungry, you become more sensitive to the smell of food

The brain biases us toward preferentially looking at eyes... not only does the the amygdala detect fearful faces, but it also plays a role in obtaining information about fearful faces in others

DO:  Survive Survive Survive.  The brain is constantly at work predicting and attempting to make through another day.  

Testosterone

Testosterone increases confidence and optimism, while decreasing fear and anxiety - winning increases the number of testosterone receptors in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (the way station where the amygdala communicates with the rest of the brain).  Success in everything... boosts testosterone levels

Testosterone does build new social patterns of aggression - it exaggerated preexisting ones

Testosterone makes us do what it takes to attain and maintain status  

Oxytocin

Oxytocin and Vasopressin facilitates bonding between both a parent and child as well as between couples

When a dog and its owner (not a stranger) interact, they secrete oxytocin.  The more time spent gazing at each other, the larger the rise.

Along with bonding, oxytocin inhibits the central amygdala, suppressing fear and anxiety - it also activates the calm, vegetative parasympathetic nervous system

Oxytocin elicits prosocial behavior and it is released when we experience prosocial behavior

Stress

During stress, the sensory shortcut from the thalamus to the amygdala becomes more active, with more excitable synapses

The amygdala region is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids, with lots of glucocorticoid receptors; stress and glucocorticoids increase excitability of amygdaloid neurons, particularly in the basolateral amygdala (the BLA), it has the role of learning fear

With more stress, the amygdala indirectly activates the glucocorticoid stress response.  Then, glucocorticoids increase amygdala excitability

Stress also makes it harder for us to unlearn fear

Stress impacts the human frontal function - for a stressed frontal cortex, or one that's been exposed to a lot of glucocorticoids... stress weakens frontal connections with the hippocampus - essential for incorporating the new information that should prompt shifting to a new strategy - while strengthening frontal connections with more habitual brain circuits.

DO  Reflect on this when you see someone doing the same unsuccessful behaviors over and over

Stress fosters aggression - because it reduces stress

With chronic stress the nucleus accumbens is depleted of dopamine, biasing rats in experiments toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.

Words we encounter have a wide range of impacts on us.  This is because our brain regions that process language also control the insides of our body, including major organs and systems that support our body budget.

DO:  Words have a large impact on Approach and Avoid.  As such, we have a page dedicated to it.  Both for better design of experiences but also how words can impact the brain to increase approach. (3)

Long periods of chronic stress can harm the human brain.  Scientific studies are absolutely clear on this point. (3)

US vs THEM

Human brains form us/Them dichotomies with very fast speed.... fifty millisecond exposure to the face of someone of another race activates the amygdala, also.... failing to activate the fusiform face area as much as same-race faces do- all within a few hundred milliseconds.  The human brain groups faces by gender or social status at roughly the same speed.

DO The human brain is built to survive - As can be seen, Approach Avoid decisions are made quickly

People with the strongest negative attitude towards other groups tend to have low thresholds for interpersonal disgust

DO We all have different levels of disgust and brain connections.  An individual is unaware of the level of these connections in their brain

We all belong to multiple Us/Them dichotomies.

Attempts to control and repress Us/Them antipathies use the frontal cortex .... a subliminal fifty-millisecond exposure to the face of another can activate the amygdala, and if exposure is long enough for conscious detection (about five hundred milliseconds or more), the initial amygdala activation is followed by PFC activation and amygdala damping; the more PFC activation, particularly of the "cognitive" dlPFC, the more amygdala silencing.  The PFC is regulating discomfiting emotions.

DO  Following up on the last DA, we all have various levels of connections in the brain areas listed above.  It makes perfect sense that people react to situations differently

Various strategies have been found to decrease implicit biases.  A classic one is perspective taking (which is why the skill of Detached Observation is important) which enhances identification with Them.

In post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the amygdala is overreactive to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow in calming down after being activated.  Moreover, the amygdala expands in size with long-term PTSD. (1)

DO:   PTSD in another person is dark to us unless we know that person's past events/experiences.  Also, something like PTSD just does not go away.  We cannot wish away certain brain connections from traumatic events.

Empathy

The more familiar other people are to us, the more efficiently our brain predicts their inner struggles.  The whole process feels obvious and natural as if we are reading another person's mind.  When people are less familiar to us, it can be harder to empathize.  We will need to learn more about the other person, an extra effort that translates into more withdrawals from our body budget.

DO:  We may say to ourselves "Why isn't that person more empathetic?  An answer is we do not know the inner connections in their head and whether that persons brain wants to take withdrawals from their body budget to learn and be empathetic.  

Below you will find Detached Observation statements on how a human brain needs to figure out and survive in this world.

Just too much information in the world

DO:  There is just too much information - too many inputs - in the world.  The human brain has to filter almost all of it out.  The brain takes bits of information that are going to be Useful in some way.  This is why the study of Energy and those Inputs (and how we interpret them) is so important.

- Bizarre/Funny/Visually striking things stick out more than non-bizarre/unfunny things.  We tend to raise the importance of inputs that are unusual or surprising.  We tend to skip over inputs that we think are ordinary or expected.  This makes sense with our energy use.

DO:  The human brain is looking for difference.  It can predict the predictable.  (As an example, drive the same route to work and you can mostly daydream or be thinking of other things as you drive - until something 'different' happens (ex. animal running across the road).

From a Business Perspective, we see this play out in advertising - it is taking more energy to reach customers.  The brain gets used to advertising and tunes it out.  The brain looks for something different worth extending extra energy and to survive.

- We notice things that are already primed in memory or repeated often.  We are more likely to notice items that are related to inputs that have been recently loaded in memory.

DO  Used heavily in advertising and politics.  The same thing repeated over and over.  Reflect on this when you hear an advertisement or someone repeating something over and over to build a narrative in your brain.

- We notice when something has changed.  We also weigh the significance of the change (positive or negative).  The brain needs to make a quick decision about that change.

We are drawn to inputs that confirm our existing beliefs and ignore details that are contradictory to our beliefs (Confirmation Bias).  

DO:  Our existing beliefs are important for Survival.  Also, changing beliefs requires Energy.  Alas, these two sections are included on this site as two individual pages because of the importance of each.

The inputs from the world do not come with instructions for the brain.  The brain has to get what it means.

DO:  The world is very confusing.  Due to our limited perception, we only see a sliver of it - What is USEFUL to us.  With the limited inputs and the importance of Energy, we need to make quick and effective decisions based on what we know.  We need to make meaning of the inputs quickly to survive.  We connect the dots (we are constantly filling in gaps) and updating our view/perspective of the world.

- We find patterns with the limited inputs we receive.  We use past inputs to the senses to help build a worldview since we can never truly get the full understanding of the world.  

DO:  Brain interpretations/predictions of the world are:

- Quick 

- Basing it on past inputs

- Constantly filling in gaps to make fast decisions

- Using more energy on what is important

- We like what we are familiar with or fond of better than what we are not familiar with or do not like. 

DO:  For most of us, there is Safety and Certainty with what we know.  Exploring out of safe area can be risky and it uses energy (It also can be rewarding)

- We simplify the math of the world (probabilities and numbers) to make them easier to think about.

- We think we know what others are thinking and we make a lot of assumptions - we also assume others think like us.

DO:  Other people's experiences and inputs are DARK to us.  Every person does what they do based on their brain structure and past experiences.  Trying to understand everyone's perspective is just too expensive to do.  You can see this in society as people want simple answers to the issues of the world.

- We project our current mindset and assumptions in both the future and the past.  We find it difficult to project something we do not have a history of (we need experiences)

DO:  Humans have a harder time working through scenarios without past experiences - Takes energy and learning.  One good example to share is the work of the late Al Bartlett.  He did lectures on exponential math.  At the individual level and the societal level, we miscalculate due to our misunderstanding of exponential.  We have a brain history of linear so that is what our brains predict.  You can see his work at: https://www.albartlett.org/ ).  Our brains do not have a history of exponential as a major input.

We need to Think/Act Fast!  We are constrained by time and information.  We need to have the ability to act fast in the face of uncertainty.  

- We need to act with confidence and feel we are important and our decisions are impactful.

DO:  Having a lot uncertainty is dangerous.  Throughout human history, not knowing if there is a tiger or not behind a bush meant the difference of life and death.  Being uncertain also takes energy to overcome.

- We favor the immediate over the delayed and distant.  We favor and relate to stories of individuals vs anonymous individuals or groups.

DO:  Over human history, the immediate was most important.  Shorter lives, finding meals, etc.  The brain is trying to survive in the present.  Using energy on long distance problems is not the norm.

- We are motivated to complete things that we have already invested energy in.  (An object in motion stays in motion).

- We are motivated to preserve our autonomy and status within a group.  Changing in groups is risky.

DO:  Surviving in the community was vital in the past.  To be an outcast was dangerous to survival.  It didn't make sense historically to 'switch teams' and go against the grain.  It put yourself and family at risk.

- We prefer options that appear simple over options that are more complex and ambiguous.  

Our memory is also a structure of energy.  There's too much information in the universe.  We keep around the bits that are more likely to be useful to us in the future.  As an example, we prefer generalizations over specifics.

- We edit and reinforce some memories after the fact. We think our memory is exactly what happened but it is not due to memory brain structure.

- We prefer generalities over specifics.  EX.  Implicit associations, stereotypes, and prejudices come from our cognitive biases.

- We pick out a few items to represent the whole.  

- Our brains encode information that is important at the time and that encoding is impacted by other circumstances that are happening at the time. 

DO:  Our memory is also a structure of energy.  There's too much information in the universe.  We keep around the bits that are more likely to be useful to us in the future.  As an example, we prefer generalizations over specifics.

Article

Hierarchical brain networks active in approach and avoidance goal pursuit

Jeffrey Spielberg 

Wendy Heller 

Gregory A Miller

Link:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00284/full

"..motivation is necessary for an organism to pursue goals"

 "Approach and avoidance motivation are hypothesized to form the “basic building blocks that underlie the complexity of human behavior"

"combining  Scholer/Higgins and Elliots models, the present proposal offers a hierarchical model of approach/avoidance motivation that consists of four levels: temperamental, system, strategic, and tactical. The temperamental level consists of broad tendencies to implement approach or avoidance goals and approach or avoidance means to attain these goals. The system level maintains the goals that are held, approaching desired outcomes and/or avoiding undesired outcomes. The strategic level represents the general means or process by which the goal will be pursued, and, at the tactical level, the strategy is instantiated in a specific context."

"an overwhelming research base indicating that PFC is central to the pursuit of goals"

"several studies suggest that DLPFC is essential for the neural integration of motivation and executive function processes."  

"The model proposed...  posits that the system, strategic, and tactical levels of the hierarchical model of approach/avoidance motivation are instantiated along an anterior-to-posterior gradient of SLPFC (including DLFPC). Further, the present review suggests that OFC and ACC provide information about stimulus and action value, respectively, to these areas. Lastly, MPFC and PCC are involved in integrating motivationally salient information into the anticipation of potential future outcomes. Thus, we propose that all regions discussed are involved in instantiating the model, with SLPFC involved in overall coordination and maintenance over time of level-specific processing."

DO:  Obviously Approach and Avoid is basic to other species on the planet and for humans.  With the complexity of the human brain, it is a lot more complex than just simple approach and avoid for food, reproduction, and survival.  This article gets into the hierarchical brain networks that are active in approach and avoid goal pursuit.

1.  Survival

Below you will find a few links to research in the area of Survival

Research in Physical Survival:

The ecology of human fear:  survival optimization and the nervous system  National Library of Medicine  

Proposes from the article 

The goal of the nervous system is to reduce surprise and optimize actions by:

1.  Predicting sensory landscape and selecting pre-encounter action

2.  Prevention strategies and manufacturing safe environments

3.  When a threat is encountered, the threat-orienting system is engaged to determine if to ignore it

4.  Monitors threat, determines threat value, predicts actions of the threat, and seeks safety

5.  When under attack, defensive systems evoke fast escape behaviors (fight or flight)

How your brain reacts to threats  Psychology Today

Carrots and Sticks

"But here’s the key difference between carrots and sticks: If you miss out on a carrot today, you’ll probably have a chance at more carrots tomorrow. But if you fail to avoid a stick today – WHAP! – no more carrots forever. Compared to carrots, sticks usually have more urgency and impact."

"your body generally reacts more intensely to negative stimuli than to equally strong positive ones"

"In your brain, negative stimuli produce more neural activity than do equally intense (e.g., loud, bright) positive ones. They are also perceived more easily and quickly"  

DO:  The Human Brain is on alert for negative and threatening inputs.  

Lesson:  If you have 10 apples of energy a day and your objective is to be alive at the end of it, where would you put your apples of energy?  It makes sense that we as humans focus on negative over positive.  As an example, why does our society have so many negative stories in the news compared to positive ones?  Our brains have to be focused on them.  Thus, they get more views, more views equal more advertising revenue, and more coverage.  

Understanding the stress response  Harvard Medical School Publishing

"When someone experiences a stressful event, the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. This area of the brain functions like a command center, communicating with the rest of the body through the nervous system so that the person has the energy to fight or flee."

"After the amygdala sends a distress signal, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals through the autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands."  

"All of these changes happen so quickly that people aren't aware of them. In fact, the wiring is so efficient that the amygdala and hypothalamus start this cascade even before the brain's visual centers have had a chance to fully process what is happening."

Research in Cultural Survival:

Humans are social.  Throughout human history, if you were kicked out of the tribe, your chances of physically surviving were drastically reduced.  Cultural survival is so important.  You will see research throughout this site that will emphasize this.

Verbal insults trigger a "mini slap to the face", finds new research     Frontiers

"Humans are a highly social species. We rely on ever-changing cooperation dynamics and interpersonal relations to survive and thrive. Words have a big role to play in these relations, as they are tools used to understand interpersonal behavior." 

"The researchers found that even under unnatural conditions — a lab-setting, no real human interactions, and statements coming from fictitious people — verbal insults can still “get at you”, no matter who the insult is about, and continue to do so even after repetition."

"...the results show an increased sensitivity of our brains to negative words compared to positive words. An insult immediately captures our brain's attention, as the emotional meaning of insults is retrieved from long-term memory."

Mixing the Two:  Physical and Cultural Survival

Work by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski.

From their book:  "The Worm at the Core" - On the Role of Death in Life.  Below you will find notes along with Detached Observation for Approach - Avoid.

Humans manage the problem of knowing we are mortal by calling on two basic psychological resources.  1 - We need to sustain faith in our cultural worldview, which helps with our sense of reality with order, meaning, and permanence.

2 - The second vital resource for managing terror is a feeling of personal significance, commonly known as self-esteem.  

The way we humans seek the above two varies considerably across all of us.

Reminders of death provoke more negative reactions to those who fail to live up to our values.  They also spawn more positive responses to people who uphold them.  In one study, death reminders tripled the monetary reward people recommended for someone who reported a dangerous criminal to the police.

Concerns about mortality influence everything from the mundane to the momentous - Examples include:

What we eat for lunch

How much sunscreen we put on at the beach

Who we vote for

Our attitudes toward shopping

Our mental health and physical well-being

Who we like and dislike

DO:  In their work and many studies, they show how the human brain goes into safety mode when the expression of death is brought up to both the subconscious and conscious.  The studies also show how the impact on behavior can be all done without the knowledge of the individual and they are not able to explain why they did what they did.  The studies also reveal that it is not just physical death threats that influence behavior (Politicians know this work - A lot of advertising dollars are spent trying to convince voters that their culture is dying and the outgroup is responsible)

An example of how the human brain mixes Physical Survival and Cultural Survival:

INSULAR CORTEX - 

DO   The insular cortex does both moral and gustatory disgust.  Here is a link to a YouTube Video of Robert Sapolsky discussing this:

LINK TO VIDEO

Reminder, so much of the disgust at the insular cortex is beyond our awareness

It is highlighted here as an example of how the insular cortex manages disgust at the physical survival level (eating bad food) and cultural survival (bad morale behavior of others).

Lesson:  Try perspective taking on your insular cortex in terms of disgust.  The next time you find something disgusting (whether it be bad food, a spider, a bug at a restaurant, someone does something you find offensive, someone saying something inappropriate, etc.), imagine your insular cortex lighting up to protect you.  Now try to imagine someone else in similar circumstances.  Perspective take on their brains becoming disgusted on bad food or an outgroup member saying something that is disgusting to them.  If you are in the business of designing experiences for others, this lesson will be helpful to improve your work - Manage Physical and Morale Disgust in human experiences to Reduce Avoidance.  

DO:  Negative hits to human self-esteem or status impacts human survival.  How people handle these threats and insults varies depending on brain structure and past experiences.  As seen within the Insular Cortex, Physical and Cultural impacts and survival within the human brain can be intertwined.  Powerful information to reflect on.

Summary:  Like Approach Avoid, we recommend thinking more in terms of how another person is attempting to Survive both Physically and within their Culture.  The Sales Process, the Customer Experience, the Employee Experience.... Everything is about Surviving and Thriving.  Helping others Survive will help you and your organization raise the bar. 

2.  Human Perception

Senses Research:

"How Odors Influence Brain's Decision-Making Mechanism"

"Researchers have uncovered a novel function of the hippocampus in decision making, showing that specific brain cells, known as ‘time cells,’ are stimulated by odors to facilitate rapid ‘go, no-go’ decisions."

"By tracking the activation of these cells in response to scents, the team has revealed a direct link between odor, hippocampal function, and associative learning, suggesting that these cells play a crucial role beyond memory recall, directly influencing the brain’s decision-making process." 

"The catalyst for the decision-making is the odor which travels up the nose sending neural signals to the olfactory bulb and to the hippocampus. The two organs are closely connected. The information is swiftly processed and the brain makes a decision based on the input."

Along with projecting to the the amygdala and entorhinal cortex, olfactory also impacts and sends significant projections back to the olfactory bulb and piriform cortex.  This reciprocal feedforward and feedback system can permit experience, context, and behavioral state to modulate odor processing as early as the second-order neurons.  There is the anatomical triangulation with limbic and neocortical structures - these odor objects can include and evoke strong multimodal, emotional, and memory-rich perceptions.  (2)

The olfactory bulb directly sends odor information to brain areas critical in emotional and cognitive processing of orders, such as the piriform "olfactory" cortex and the amygdala.  The locus coeruleus (LC) projects to the olfactory bulb and is the bulb's sole source of norepinephrine (NE). (2)

DO:  So much work the brain does on capturing inputs from the 5 senses is beyond human consciousness.  Humans will Approach and Avoid with no idea as to why they are doing what they're doing.  To survive, a brain also needs to remember inputs for future use.   

The role of odors in controlling social behavior is reflected in the olfactory bulb's direct projection to brain areas important for cognition and emotional processing, which modulate approach and avoidance behaviors. (2)

Lesson:  The next time you go out to a restaurant (you can also perspective take on someone doing this or your last past experience), use your imagination to reflect on how your 5 senses were in play during this experience.  

Sight:  Was the restaurant and restrooms clean>  Did it have order?  How was spacing and navigation?  Were people friendly?   Did the food look appetizing?

Sound:  Was there music playing?  Did the music provoke memories (positive or negative)?  Was it too loud?  What was the tone of voice of employees who spoke to you?

Taste:  Did the food taste good?  Is it what you were expecting?

Touch:  How did the menus feel?  How about the entrance doors?  Did you shake anybody's hand?  Did anybody touch you on the shoulder?

Smell:  Did you like the smells from the restaurant?  Do you recall anything that would make you approach or avoid this restaurant in terms of smell?  Perspective take on what kind of smells a brain would need to approach or avoid this place in the future.

Now that we covered the five senses and how a human brain learns what is "out there", how does a brain work to Approach or Avoid these inputs?  

3.  Brain Predictions

Brain Prediction Research

"The brain is a prediction machine:  It knows how well we are doing something before we even try" 

"The brain is a prediction machine.  It is always trying to predict what is going to happen next so that we are ready for whatever life throws at us"

"A brain activity pattern in the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex tracks this estimate of how well we are likely to do." 

Lesson:  Reflect over the last few weeks on the events that you found to be surprisingly positive and those that were negative and you became disappointed.  Then perspective take on how your brain predicted those events.  

Using detached observation, reflect on how your brain used past experiences to predict events correctly.  

Lastly, now reflect on how powerful the human brain can be.  How many predictions occur when a person is driving a vehicle at higher speeds in busy traffic?  A professional baseball player hitting a 100mph fastball.  

How does a brain learn to predict better?  Let's discuss Memory - Past Experiences... 

4.  Past Experiences

Research into Memory and Past Experiences

Here is a Quick Read on Memory from Harvard University:

How Memory Works

What happens when our brains make errors in predicting inputs?  Let's explore Emotions...

5.  Emotions

Research into Emotions

Information from "How Emotions are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett

The human face contains 42 small muscles on each side.

Fear does not have a single expression but a diverse population of facial movements.    These vary from different situations.

Important note:

Variation is the norm - Emotion fingerprints are a myth.

Ex.  Anger>  Does not refer to a specific response with a unique physical fingerprint but to a group of highly variable instances that are tied to a specific situation.

Pattern classification:

Neural mind reading

Experiential Blindness

Past experiences give meaning to current sensations.

Simulations - A brains guess of what's happening in the world.

Concepts - Every moment the brain uses concepts to simulate the outside world.  The human brain uses concepts to give meaning to both internal and external sensations.

EMOTION  >  A brain's creation of what bodily sensations mean.

Emotions are not reactions to the world.  From sensory input and past experiences, the human brain constructs meaning and prescribes action.

Cultures can and do make different kinds of meanings from the same sensory input.

Lesson:  Anger, Sadness, Joy, Excitement, and every intense emotion you feel.  Reflect on what the brain was learning when you experienced these emotions in the past.   Now walk through how your brain got angry at something and did not do that action again.  

There are too many inputs in the world - There is too much information.

We can only be in one physical space at a time.  What is an important aspect on how the brain will Approach or Avoid inputs?

6.  Energy

ARTICLES

We finally know why the brain uses so much energy  Live Science

"The study researchers found that tiny sacs called vesicles that hold messages being transmitted between brain cells may be constantly oozing energy and that leakage is likely a trade-off for the brain being ready to fire at all times, according to a new study"

"The brain is considered a very expensive organ to run"

"Just imagine how quickly you can accelerate if you had a car idling at all times at a high rev rate, but how much fuel you'd waste, he added. "Maybe the price of keeping synapses at the ready was what seems to be an inefficient use of energy." 

Paying the brain's energy bill  Science Direct

"The brain is metabolically expensive. In humans, the brain consumes approximately 20% of our metabolic energy, despite comprising only 2% of our body mass, making it amongst the most energetically costly organs in the body"

"Energy trade-offs are also required to support the operational costs of the brain, which are not constant across the lifespan. Learning and memory formation, for example, incurs significant energy costs..."

"Accumulating evidence indicates that the brain operates energetically efficiently, enabling it to operate with reduced energy use. Thus, whilst the brain is metabolically expensive, its cost reflects a lower bound required for function. A sizeable fraction of the brain's energy expenses are used to support electrical signaling"  

Conclusion

1.  "peripheral tissue and functions have been sacrificed to support the metabolic need of the brain"

2.  "the brain has evolved energy-efficient coding strategies to operate at reduced cost."

3.  "the brain efficiently uses costly neural resources during food scarcity; this requires both a decrease in energy expenditure of non-essential neural functions, and a selective enhancement of useful neural functions to maximize the chances of finding food and water in times of need."

The last of the 7 Starters is what we do with the inputs we have received.  Since the human is dark to us, this next starter is the decision our brains made...

7.  Actions

Action and Goal Pursuit

Here is some information to share on Goal Pursuit:

Hierarchical brain networks active in approach and avoidance goal pursuit