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Human approach-avoidance conflict behaviour relates to transdiagnostic psychiatric symptom dimensions

2026-01-28 · Back to index

Why everyday risk-taking and worry matter

Everyday life is full of trade-offs: we cross busy streets to get to work faster, take on demanding projects for a promotion, or decide whether to confront a difficult conversation. In each case we balance possible rewards against potential harm. Scientists call this a “approach-avoidance conflict.” This study asks a deceptively simple question with big implications: when people are more or less cautious in these kinds of trade-offs, does that reflect how anxious they say they feel—or is something else going on under the surface?

Turning danger and reward into a simple game

To study these decisions, the researchers used an online computer game that strips the problem down to its basics

. Players start in a safe area at the bottom of a grid. From time to time, a token worth money appears off to one side. If the player leaves safety and reaches the token, they win it—but they risk being “caught” by a cartoon predator at the top of the grid and losing a number of tokens, shown on screen. Different background colors signal predators that are more or less dangerous, but players must learn how risky each color is by experience. Cautious behavior in this game shows up in two ways: how often people choose to stay put instead of going for the token (passive avoidance), and how long they wait before they start to move (behavioural inhibition).

Linking cautious choices to broad mental health traits

More than a thousand adults from an online workforce completed this task and then answered a wide range of questionnaires about mood, anxiety, compulsive habits, impulsivity, social fears, and other symptoms. Instead of treating each questionnaire separately, the authors looked for deeper “dimensions” that cut across traditional diagnoses. They recovered three such dimensions: one dominated by compulsive behavior, intrusive thoughts, impulsivity, substance use and eating problems; one capturing anxious mood and depression; and one reflecting social withdrawal and shyness. The central discovery was that cautious behavior in the game was most strongly related to the broad compulsive/impulsive dimension, and barely related at all to the anxiety–depression dimension the task is often assumed to tap.

When being both bold and slow becomes risky

The pattern of results is striking

. People scoring high on the compulsive/impulsive dimension approached rewards more often—they were less likely to sit tight in the safe zone—yet they also took longer to start moving. In other words, they were bolder in choosing to take risks, but slower in carrying out those choices. At the same time, their decisions were less tuned to how dangerous and costly a given situation actually was: increases in threat probability or potential loss changed their behavior less than it did for others. These individuals were also more prone to mistakes, such as running toward the wrong side of the grid and getting caught more frequently overall.

How distorted beliefs shape memory for danger

The study went a step further by probing people’s mental model of the game’s dangers. In a separate task, participants repeatedly checked whether the predator was awake, and later rated how likely each predator was to catch them. On average, everyone overestimated how risky the predators were—seeing the world as more dangerous than it really was. But those high on the compulsive/impulsive dimension did this to a greater extent, and their estimates were less sensitive to the true differences between “safer” and “riskier” predators. They seemed to form a fuzzier, more distorted picture of threat, even though their frequent approaches gave them more chances to learn the statistics of the game.

Why this changes how we think about anxiety tests

Putting these pieces together, the authors argue that cautious behavior in approach-avoidance games does not specifically mirror how anxious or depressed people say they feel. Instead, it aligns more closely with a broad mix of traits involving compulsivity, impulsivity, and related problems, and with how clearly people can represent and use information about danger. This raises doubts about using such tasks as simple “anxiety tests,” even though they are very sensitive to anti-anxiety drugs in animals and humans. It also highlights a more nuanced picture: our real-world cautiousness may emerge from long-standing decision styles and learning habits that shape how we perceive threats and rewards, rather than from momentary feelings of worry alone.

Citation: Sporrer, J.K., Melinscak, F. & Bach, D.R. Human approach-avoidance conflict behaviour relates to transdiagnostic psychiatric symptom dimensions. Transl Psychiatry 16, 61 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-026-03835-8

Keywords: approach-avoidance conflict, cautious behavior, compulsive symptoms, risky decision-making, threat learning