Understanding how social interactions shape an organism’s behavior, specifically the approach and avoidance tendencies towards interaction partners associated with reward or threat, is a crucial mechanism. The current project aimed to investigate these processes through a novel social conditioning procedure combined with a social approach test that shares key features with comparable protocols in the animal literature (Toth et al., 2012).
Participants had the opportunity to freely navigate a virtual reality (VR) scenario using a locomotion platform. Within this VR environment, they encountered two agents who reacted either in a friendly or unfriendly way to the participant’s presence. After this social conditioning, we investigated whether participants adapt their behavior in a subsequent test phase.
The primary goal of this study was to investigate whether participants, varying in their trait social anxiety, display differential approach and avoidance tendencies towards differently conditioned virtual agents at a behavioral level (including whole-body movement and interpersonal distance). We also examined active exploration, particularly gaze behavior, and assessed subjective responses, such as perceived likeability, fear, and anger. Additionally, differences in autonomic responses, including pupillary, electrodermal, and cardiovascular responses, were analyzed.
Collaborators: Matthias Gamer
