Why Do People Look at Negative Pictures?
The Effect of Empathy Motivation on
Viewing Time for Neutral and Negative Pictures
Lotte Lebbink
Masterthesis Training & Development Programme group Social Psychology University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: Suzanne Oosterwijk Second reviewer: Nils Jostmann Student number: 10190325 Date: January 30th, 2017
Index
Abstract...2
Introduction ...4
Empathy ... 5
The current study ... 7
Methods ... 10 Participants...10 Design ...10 Materials ...10 Procedure ...12 Analyses ...13 Results... 14 Viewing times...14 Subjective scales ...16 Correlations ...18
Viewing times and subjective scales...18
IRI...19
Discussion ... 20
References... 23
Appendix ... 28
Abstract
It is seemingly impossible to ignore the gruesome pictures that accompany news in papers and social media nowadays. In this study, the role of empathy motivation in the viewing of negative and neutral images is studied. Two contrasting hypotheses are examined: On the one hand, empathy may prolong viewing time, since processing the feelings a picture evokes could take time. On the other hand, empathy may shorten viewing time, since empathic feelings could be overwhelming and thus avoided. The study incorporated three conditions: an affective empathy condition, cognitive empathy condition and control condition. Participants were presented with negative and neutral pictures that show more or less approachable social scenes. The results show that negative pictures had longer viewing times than neutral ones and high avoidance pictures had shorter viewing times than low avoidance ones. The condition effect did not reach significance, but the results did reveal a pattern. The role of empathy motivation is discussed.
Introduction
In recent years, pictures in news reports have become more and more gruesome. Photojournalists have to decide whether a picture is suitable for the public. They are torn between keeping distressing pictures out of the news coverage and publishing them to do justice to what it happening in the world (Lewis, 2016). Michelle Gunn explains that, as an editor, she keeps “balancing the imperative to convey the reality of the crime against the need not to cause unnecessary distress” (in Elliot, 2014). The tilting point of that balance is subjective, of course, and the other side is not without support. In opposition, Suzanne Moore (2014) voices her sentiments in The Guardian, “I don’t need to see any more images of dead children to want a ceasefire, a political settlement. I don’t need you to tweet them to show me you care”.
As the years go by, the balance seems to tilt towards more graphic content. Part of the reason may be that journalists do not follow rules that are set in stone. Also, since social media are a platform for any user around the globe, it is impossible to filter every distressing picture (Lewis, 2016). Take the recent Syrian refugee crisis for example, where the picture of a drowned Syrian toddler appeared on almost all news sites and social media, even though it was a very shocking picture (Goodyear, 2015).
The research is limited on this subject, but results seem to point in one direction: negative pictures are preferred over neutral ones (Oosterwijk, in revision) and viewing times for these negative pictures are longer than neutral ones (Cuthbert, Bradley & Lang, 1996). Furthermore, psychological research has shown that when people have the choice, they rather read news articles that are accompanied by negative pictures than
articles with harmless pictures or no pictures (Zillmann, Knobloch & Yu, 2001). Overall, people seem to prefer negative pictures.
All of this might sound counterintuitive, maybe even heartless. Why would you rather look at something negative than something neutral or positive? That is a question that is not yet explained. Taking in negative pictures seems to be related to attention and interest, though (Rimé, Delfosse & Corsini, 2005). And in line with graphic pictures in the news, people do not only seek out news for the informational value, but also because of empathy-‐related motivations (Knobloch-‐Westerwick, Carpentier, Blumhoff & Nickel, 2005).
This study will zoom in on this empathy-‐related motivation and its role in the preference for negative pictures. The central aim will be to investigate the possible role of empathy motivation, defined as the motivation to understand expressive others (Zahavi, 2008), in the attraction to negative pictures in general. To our knowledge, this study serves as a pilot, since viewing times or preference for certain pictures has not been studied in relation to empathy motivation.
Empathy
Before studying this relation, lets take a look at the definition of empathy. The term is applied to an wide-‐ranging spectrum of psychological states: From feelings of concern for other people, to experiencing emotions that resemble someone else’s; from understanding the feelings of others, to knowing someone else’s thoughts (Hodges & Klein, 2001). Importantly, empathy is not only described as understanding expressive others (Zahavi, 2008), it is also often described as the process that an observer simulates another person’s state (Goldman, 2006; Keysers & Gazzola, 2014).
Empathy researchers distinguish ‘cognitive’ empathy and ‘affective’ empathy (Decety, 2011; Eisenberg & Eggum, 2009; Nummenmaa, Hirvonen, Parkkola & Hietanen, 2008). The two processes can be differentiated in the brain (Shamay-‐Tsoory, Aharon-‐ Peretz & Perry, 2009). In short, cognitive empathy involves the understanding of a situation someone else is in and understanding their perspective. Affective empathy involves grasping someone else’s feelings and copying their state. According to research, affective empathy (sometimes called ‘emotional’ empathy) facilitates simulation of somatic, sensory, and motor representations of other peoples’ states more than cognitive empathy does (Nummenmaa et al., 2008). Since both processes are focused on an entirely different aspect of another’s perceptions, they could affect viewing times differently.
Empathy’s possible effect is intriguing, because it may either reduce or extend viewing times for negative pictures. On the one hand, people who feel empathy when looking at a negative picture may shorten their viewing time, because they do not want to continue their negative empathetic feelings. For example, children have been shown to withdraw if they are overwhelmed by someone else’s distress (Zahn-‐Waxler & Radke-‐ Yarrow, 1990). Another study showed that empathic concern was related to the seeking of positive news, but not to seeking out negative news (Hoffner, Fujioka, Ye & Ibrahim, 2009). On the other hand, empathy may extend viewing times for negative pictures when people take the time to understand others’ emotions. Furthermore, one’s own empathic feelings could overwhelm the person and cause them to slow down behaviourally (Cameron & Payne, 2011). In short, empathy motivation is of special interest in recent times where news seems to get more and more graphic. This study is a pilot to research empathy motivation, because it could either reduce or extend viewing times.
The current study
In this study, participants will be shown neutral and negative pictures and may view these pictures as long as they want. This self-‐paced viewing task allows for a direct measure of viewing time. To test the role of empathy, we will manipulate different empathy motivations. Several authors argue that the level of empathy may be influenced by a person’s motivation or the situational context (Keysers and Gazzola, 2014; Batson, Eklund, Chermok, Hoyt & Ortiz, 2007) and empathy has been regularly manipulated in other research contexts (e.g. Kaukiainen et al., 1999; Batson, Chang, Orr & Rowland, 2002 and Berenguer, 2007). Participants in the affective empathy condition were asked to simulate or take over the affective or emotional state of the people in the pictures. Participants in the cognitive empathy condition were asked to focus on the perspective and the situational inferences of the people in the pictures. In addition, the study incorporated a control group without a specific motivation.
We used pictures from an established picture set, the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) for the self-‐paced viewing task (Marchewka, Zurawski, Jednoróg & Grabowska, 2014). This picture set holds ratings for negativity and approach-‐avoidance for each picture. We used those ratings to differentiate negative and neutral picture categories and high and low avoidance categories. Approachability has not yet been studied in relation to empathy, but research shows that ‘lower’ social categories, like homeless people, activate less social cognition (Harris & Fiske, 2006) and fail to capture people’s attention (Harris & Fiske, 2011). These social categories are often highly rated on avoidance levels in the NAPS in comparison with, for example, a child or elderly person. Avoidance is therefore included as a second independent variable. Note that this avoidance dimension is different from psychological distance, the distance one feels from the direct experience of the self or the here and now (Liberman & Trope, 2014).
This study incorporates four picture categories, differing in negativity and avoidance levels: Low avoidance pictures with neutral valence are mostly portraits of children; high avoidance pictures with neutral valence are mostly neutral looking males. High avoidance pictures with negative valence show people of all ages that look hurt, angry or dirty; low avoidance pictures with negative valence are characterized by helplessness, with women, children and elderly people as portrayed victims.
Pictures from the NAPS are particularly suitable, since they contain ratings for valence and avoidance and are very true to nature (Marchewka et al., 2014). Pictures are used because they are more suitable for measuring viewing time than film clips. Previous research has shown that pictures are categorized as positive or negative within 120 ms (Smith, Cacioppo, Larsen & Chartrand, 2003).
Hypotheses
The first hypothesis holds that participants in the experimental conditions will look at negative pictures longer than people in the control condition, because they have a motivational goal. Considering the effect of affective and cognitive empathy motivations, this condition effect could occur in three forms. On the one hand, affective empathy might decrease viewing times in comparison to cognitive empathy because people may want to terminate a negative picture to protect themselves against the affective feelings that are evoked. On the other hand, affective empathy might extend viewing times more than cognitive empathy, because being overwhelmed by negative emotions causes people to slow down. Lastly, cognitive and affective empathy may extend viewing times the same amount, because in both cases the participants may want to understand the feelings or perspective of the person in the picture, leading to extended viewing compared to the control condition.
The second hypothesis states that participants view the negative pictures longer than neutral ones, based on previous research (Cuthbert et al., 1996). The third states that low avoidance pictures will be viewed for a longer period than high avoidance pictures. Lastly, as an explorative factor, we examine whether self-‐reported empathy plays a role in viewing times. Individual differences in empathy may affect viewing times, the effect of our empathy manipulation and may relate to some of our subjective scales.
Methods
Participants
Seventy-‐five participants were recruited through the online participant system at the University of Amsterdam (Digital Participants Management System) rewarded with course credit or money (16 male, 58 female). The participants were randomly selected into the affective empathy (N = 24), cognitive empathy (N = 25) or control condition (N = 25). Informed consent was obtained from all participants. One participant was excluded because of incomplete data. Part of this participant’s data, ratings on the subjective scales and demographical information, was missing. Most participants were students, with mean age 22 (SD = 3,27). Participants over forty were not included.
Design
The study had a 3 (motivation: cognitive empathy/affective empathy/none) x 2 (valence: neutral/negative) x 2 (avoidance: high/low) design. The motivation was manipulated between participants. Valence and avoidance were manipulated within-‐ participants. The dependent variables are viewing time and the scores on the subjective scales.
Materials
The 48 pictures were taken from the NAPS (Marchewka et al., 2014). Each picture category contained twelve pictures with at least one person: neutral – high avoidance (e.g. a laughing man with missing front teeth, a smoking middle-‐aged woman), negative – high avoidance (e.g. a guy that is beaten up, people in accidents), neutral – low
avoidance (e.g. a boy on the sidewalk, an old lady) and negative – low avoidance (e.g. a girl with an amputated arm, a crying woman whose house burned down). It was visually checked that the people in that category fit the right profile and that pictures had a good balance between active and static scenes. Pictures were carefully matched using cut-‐off scores for all categories (see Table 1). As intended, negative and neutral pictures differed significantly on valence, and low avoidance and high avoidance pictures differed significantly on avoidance (both p’s < .001). Importantly, however, negative pictures of low and high avoidance did not differ in valence (i.e., they were matched in rated negativity), nor did neutral pictures of low and high avoidance differ in valence (p ≥ .24). See the Appendix for more information about the used pictures.
To measure people's self-‐reported empathy, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index was included (IRI, Davis, 1980; Davis, 1983). The Dutch version has been proven to be reliable (De Corte, Buysse, Verhofstadt, Roeyers, Ponnet, & Davis, 2007). The test contains 28 items the participant needs to rate on a zero (does not describe me well) to five (describes me very well) Likert scale. The test measures four subscales, each based on seven items, namely empathic concern (e.g. “When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them”), perspective taking (e.g. “I try to look at everybody's side of a disagreement before I make a decision”), fantasy (e.g. “I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel”) and personal distress (e.g. “I tend to lose control during emergencies”).
Table 1. Cut-off scores for the picture categories. Negative low avoidance Negative high avoidance Neutral low avoidance Neutral high avoidance Valence score 2.23 ≤ 2.85 2.44 ≤ 2.87 4.56 ≤ 5.59 4.16 ≤ 5.58 Avoidance score 4.27 ≥ 3.22 3.19 ≥ 2.30 5.98 ≥ 5.49 5.29 ≥ 3.72 Procedure
First, all participants signed the informed consent. After that, the participants in the randomly selected three conditions read different instructions for the experiment. These instructions did not mention empathy explicitly. In the control condition, the instruction was limited to giving participants information about the fact that they would see multiple pictures and could choose their viewing times (“You will be shown pictures. You can decide how long you want to see each picture. Using the space bar, you will go to the next picture.” in Dutch). Added to this instruction, participants in the affective empathy condition were instructed to empathize with the people in the pictures (“Try your best to imagine how the people in the pictures feel and try to feel these feelings yourself.”). Participants in the cognitive empathy condition were instructed to understand the depicted situations and the people’s perspective (“Try your best to comprehend the situation the people in the pictures are in and try to understand their perspective.”).
After the instruction, participants viewed 48 pictures in random order in their own time. Halfway through, they received their instructions one more time. After a short break they were presented with at all the pictures once more and rated the pictures on
three aspects: the interest they felt for the picture, the valence they would rate the picture and the ease to empathize with the picture. The ratings were made with a sliding scale from zero to a hundred.
Next, they completed the IRI questionnaire, followed by an exit questionnaire with demographic details and a question about their motivation during the experiment. This contained a check if the participant remembered their instructions and if they didn’t skip the pictures too fast to finish the experiment early. The experiment was done after the participant noted their believed purpose of the experiment.
Analyses
We performed a manipulation check, to find that only two-‐third of the participants (69%) in every condition remembered their correct instruction. However, the pattern didn’t change when the mixed ANOVA analyses were performed without the one-‐third of participants who could not remember their instruction. Therefore, all reported analyses are done with all participants. Second, we cleaned all viewing time data by excluding viewing times that were well below or above each individual’s average viewing time (viewing times with z < -‐2.5 and z > 2.5 were excluded).
Results
Using a mixed-‐design ANOVA, with valence and avoidance as within-‐subjects factors and empathy condition as between-‐subjects factor, main effects and interactions were examined.
Viewing times
As the between-‐subjects hypothesis, it was expected that participants with an empathy motivation would have longer viewing times than participants in the control condition. However, there was no main effect for condition (F(1, 71) = 1.71, p = .19, ηp2 = .05). Thus, empathy motivation did not influence viewing times significantly (for details, see Table 2), even though the pattern of the means was in the right direction (see Figure 1). There were no interactions between condition, valence, or avoidance.
Figure 1. Mean viewing times for the empathy conditions and the control condition.
7000 8000 9000 10000
Table 2. Mean viewing time for all picture categories in ms.
Picture category Condition Mean SD N
Cognitive 9046.11 3738.04 25
Affective 9835.16 3636.59 24
Control 7506.15 4052.36 25
Negative high avoid
8781.77 3886.58 74
Cognitive 9507.31 3503.45 25
Affective 10542.11 3605.77 24
Control 8325.54 3941.57 25
Negative low avoid
9443.68 3750.43 74
Cognitive 8821.56 3510.45 25
Affective 8872.94 3711.16 24
Control 7367.10 3815.76 25
Neutral high avoid
8346.85 3697.92 74
Cognitive 8816.29 3540.12 25
Affective 9365.23 3464.22 24
Control 8001.73 4303.57 25
Neutral low avoid
8719.13 3782.47 74
The second within-‐subjects hypothesis that negative pictures would extend viewing times was confirmed by a main effect of valence (F(1, 71) = 8.80, p = .004, r = .86, ηp2 = .11). Participants had longer viewing times for negative pictures (M = 9127.07, SD = 428.48) than neutral pictures (M = 8540.81, SD = 428.38), .
Third, it was expected that viewing times for high avoidance pictures would be reduced, compared to low avoidance. The results indeed showed a main effect of avoidance (F(1, 71) = 19.66, p < .001, r = .94, ηp2 = .22) with longer viewing times for low avoidance (M = 9093.04, SD = 421.60) than high avoidance (M = 8574.84, SD = 420.30). Thus, this pilot shows that avoidance has the effect one would expect. None of the interactions reached significance.
Subjective scales
After the self-‐paced viewing task, all participants looked at the pictures once more to rate the pictures on three subjective scales: 1) valence, 2) the ease to empathize, and 3) interest. None of the subjective scales show a main effect for condition. This means that the instruction to empathize did not make participants judge the pictures as more positive or negative, as easier to empathize with, or more or less interesting.
First, since the pictures were selected on being neutral and negative, the valence rating was a check of these NAPS ratings. Indeed, the ratings matched the NAPS scores, judged by the main effect of valence (F(1, 71) = 686.81, p < .001, r = 0.02, ηp2 = .91). Negative pictures were clearly rated as more negative (M = 76.84, SD = 1.13) than neutral pictures were (M = 32.49, SD = 1.29).
Looking more closely, however, even though we matched all pictures on their avoidance and valence levels, avoidance unexpectedly showed a main effect (F(1, 71) =
18.78, p < .001, r = .64, ηp2 = .21). High avoidance pictures were perceived as more negative (M = 56.47, SD = .98) than low avoidance (M = 52.86, SD = .95).
Second, the ease to empathize for pictures was measured. Like the expectation that empathy motivation affects people differently for negative or neutral pictures, valence was expected to affect the ease to empathize. The results indeed show that valence has an effect on the ease to empathize (F(1, 71) = 8.87, p = .004, r = .08, ηp2 = .11), with neutral pictures being easier to empathize with (M = 52.76, SD = 1.08) than negative ones (M = 46.37, SD = 1.94).
Avoidance was expected to affect the ease to empathize too: pictures with low avoidance contain more approachable people and situations and could therefore be easier to empathize with. The results show that when avoidance is low, it is indeed easier to empathize (F(1, 71) = 11.51, p = .001, r = .57, ηp2 = .14). An interaction between valence and avoidance shows that this only seems to be the case for neutral pictures (F(1, 71) = 8.43, p = .005, ηp2 = .11, see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Mean ease to empathize for all picture categories.
45 50 55 60 Negative Neutral High avoidance Low avoidance
The third and last subjective scale, interest, differed greatly between negative and neutral pictures (F(1, 71) = 149.14, p < .001, r = .20, ηp2 = .67). Participants showed more interest for the negative (M = 62.18, SD = 1.48) than the neutral pictures (M = 41.06, SD = 1.18). The prolonged viewing times for negative pictures could thus be related to the higher interest for these pictures. Interest differed less between high and low avoidance (F(1, 71) = 16.11, p < .001, r = .68, ηp2 = .19), but pictures with high avoidance were still rated as more interesting (M = 53.48, SD = 1.05) than pictures with low avoidance (M = 49.77, SD = 1.19). Apparently, negative pictures and the negatively rated high avoidance pictures and are both more interesting than their neutral counterparts. This is interesting, since high avoidance pictures had shorter viewing times than low avoidance pictures, whereas negative pictures cause prolonged viewing time.
Correlations
Viewing times and subjective scales
When looking at the correlations between viewing time and the ratings of the subjective scales in Table 3, only one really stands out: interest and viewing time are moderately correlated (r(72) = .28, p = .018), meaning that participants who reported being more interested, looked at pictures for longer time periods. Additionally, interest and viewing time are more strongly correlated when a picture is negative. Hence the strong correlation for negative pictures with high avoidance (r(72) = .34, p = .003).
IRI
An explorative analysis was done for a possible relation between participants’ self-‐reported empathic abilities (using the IRI) and their viewing times. Correlations were calculated, to test whether participants’ view of their empathic abilities affects their viewing time. Results show that the IRI does not correlate with viewing time or any of the three subjective scales, with every F ≤ 1.95. The way people experience their empathic abilities thus does not affect their viewing time.
Table 3. Pearson correlations between the three subjective scales and viewing time.
Mean subjective negativity Mean interest Mean empathy Mean viewing time of participant Correlation 1 .23 .03 .00 Mean subjective negativity Significance .050 .820 .972 Correlation .23 1 .05 .28* Mean interest Significance .050 .652 .018 Correlation .03 .05 1 -‐.06 Mean empathy Significance .820 .652 .601 Correlation .00 .28* -‐.06 1 Mean viewing time Significance .972 .018 .601
Discussion
The present study explored the effect of empathy motivation on viewing times for negative pictures, in comparison to neutral pictures. Four picture categories were used (neutral and negative, and both of those with high or low avoidance) in a self-‐paced viewing task. The main reason to conduct this study was to test whether empathy motivation would affect viewing times. Second, it was expected that viewing times would be extended for negative pictures, in comparison to neutral ones. Also, for the first time, it has been studied whether high avoidance levels shorten viewing times.
To start with, empathy was manipulated with a particular question in mind: could empathy explain the prolonged viewing times for negative pictures (as in Cuthbert et al., 1996)? The condition effect did not reach significance, although the means were in the expected direction (see Table 1, Figure 1). People without a given empathy motivation have the shortest viewing times for all picture categories: participants with both cognitive and affective empathy motivation view pictures at least a second longer. This pattern of means is consistent with our hypothesis that empathy motivation has an effect on viewing times. The results suggest that empathy motivation does not reduce viewing times, but extends them.
We consider three explanations for why the effect of empathy motivation did not reach significance: 1) This is a pilot study and the sample size thus could be too small; 2) our empathy manipulation did not affect the ease to empathize and may not have been strong enough to affect empathy motivation; or 3) empathy could overwhelm the viewer too much which could cause empathy avoidance. Although this latter option is possible, our design does not meet the criteria for empathy avoidance: there was no opportunity
to help the people in the pictures and it is unlikely that participants felt that the costs of helping would be high (Shaw et al., 1994). Future research should incorporate a larger sample size, place more emphasis on the empathy manipulation and/or suppress empathy more in the control condition for optimal research conditions.
Our second hypothesis, based on previous research (Cuthbert et al., 1996), was confirmed: negative pictures had longer viewing times than neutral pictures. According to subjective ratings they were more interesting (see also Oosterwijk, in revision). This finding is consistent with previous work on curiosity/fascination for negative information, which also shows that people find negative pictures more interesting than neutral (and positive) pictures (Oosterwijk, in revision; Oosterwijk, Lindquist, Adebayo & Barrett, 2016)
Avoidance levels had the predicted effect too, as the third hypothesis stated. People had shorter viewing times for high avoidance than low avoidance pictures. Part of this could be explained because neutral pictures with high avoidance were rated as more negative than the low avoidance ones. The ease to empathize was affected by avoidance as well: low avoidance makes feeling empathy easier – for neutral pictures at least. For negative pictures, subjective ratings didn’t differ with avoidance levels or the ease to empathize.
The short viewing times for high avoidance were as expected, but raise questions as well. Subjectively, both avoidance and valence affected people’s ratings similarly: higher levels make people rate pictures as more negative and as more interesting. Nevertheless, behaviourally, high avoidance decreased viewing time and negative valence prolonged it. Interest follows the same pattern. In part, this could explain the prolonged viewing times for negative pictures: because they are more interesting, people look at them for a longer period of time. Interest and viewing time are indeed
most strongly correlated when a picture is very negative. Nevertheless, high avoidance levels are subjectively more interesting too, but cause shorter viewing times instead of longer ones. On the one hand, the result found by Cuthbert and colleagues (1996) seemed to hint that a negative load always causes longer viewing times for that picture. On the other hand, it fits intuition that people would look away when a picture has high avoidance levels. Future research could study dimensions of negativity further, or interest’s role in viewing time, in particular when pictures differ in avoidance.
Two last limitations are worth to note, in addition to a bigger sample size and a stronger manipulation of empathy. To start with, all participants viewed the pictures two times: first to measure viewing time and later to rate the picture on the subjective scales. This could have an effect on the subjective ratings, because it was not a first impression of the picture anymore. Second, the current study did not take psychological distance into account. In hindsight, looking at the picture included in the current study, some of them could be socially distant, because they contain ‘dissimilar’ and ‘unfamiliar’ others (Liberman & Trope, 2014), whereas others do not. Since research shows that more psychological distance from an object (or picture) could lessen the intensity of affective responses (Trope & Liberman, 2010), this could be an interesting variable for future research.
What would all of this mean for, for example, an editor of a newspaper? It can be concluded that people’s interest is more easily aroused and viewing times are longest for negative pictures. The new finding that low avoidance levels prolong viewing times more than high avoidance, would mean that a negative picture with an approachable person would be the best possible eye-‐catcher for a front page. The picture of the drowned Syrian toddler serves as a perfect example. Although Suzanne Moore (2014) would rather see it differently, conveying the gruesome reality of an event in the news –
or in tweets – has its perks. Yet, there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. Is there a threshold or a limit for the negative load? What makes someone approachable? Does psychological distance play a role? Future research could investigate approachability and different amounts of negativity in more detail. Also, the amount of distress a negative picture causes the viewer could be studied. Let us not forget the other side of the balancing scale that is so important for editors, photojournalists and, of course, users of social media.
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Appendix
Category current study NAPS category Picture number Valence rating SD Avoidance rating SD Faces 10 2,24 1,23 2,67 1,21 Faces 18 2,41 1,15 3,14 1,67 Faces 19 2,79 1,21 3,19 1,45 Faces 32 2,63 1,41 3,18 1,71 Faces 284 2,43 1,20 3,00 1,66 People 19 2,80 1,15 2,41 1,10 People 31 2,28 1,03 2,30 1,23 People 118 2,48 1,07 2,73 1,29 People 125 2,69 1,22 3,08 1,58 People 128 2,23 1,29 2,38 1,33 People 140 2,42 1,25 2,33 1,19 Negative high avoidance People 142 2,85 0,94 2,96 1,26 Faces 7 2,87 1,50 3,48 1,63 Faces 28 2,75 1,25 3,28 1,70 Faces 31 2,79 1,07 3,47 1,50 Faces 170 2,74 1,34 3,46 1,77 Faces 172 2,45 1,15 3,39 1,48 Faces 283 2,48 1,03 4,27 2,01 Faces 290 2,77 1,29 3,53 1,85 Faces 293 2,44 1,25 3,22 1,59 People 1 2,69 1,26 3,55 1,93 People 3 2,60 1,39 4,02 2,07 People 39 2,76 1,67 3,56 1,71 Negative low avoidance People 143 2,57 1,15 3,56 1,89Faces 156 4,61 1,81 3,72 1,50 Faces 202 4,56 1,44 4,38 1,51 Faces 268 4,74 1,26 4,39 1,27 People 97 5,27 0,79 5,11 0,92 People 100 5,15 1,71 5,25 1,96 People 122 4,76 1,39 5,06 1,21 People 132 4,62 1,53 5,02 1,18 People 135 4,62 0,96 4,29 0,82 People 148 5,59 1,80 5,13 1,77 People 150 5,21 0,47 5,24 0,62 People 159 5,44 1,05 5,29 0,71 Neutral high avoidance People 247 4,76 1,73 4,37 1,79 Faces 6 4,73 1,27 5,65 1,19 Faces 8 5,21 1,63 5,63 1,30 Faces 22 4,76 1,54 5,68 1,64 Faces 30 5,56 1,49 5,62 1,42 Faces 39 4,91 1,29 5,98 1,36 Faces 70 5,35 1,73 5,52 1,50 Faces 119 5,58 1,72 5,84 1,53 Faces 297 5,24 2,04 5,80 1,65 People 56 5,53 0,69 5,54 0,72 People 95 5,24 1,89 5,90 1,74 People 139 4,16 1,46 5,49 1,75 Neutral low avoidance People 149 5,49 1,33 5,50 1,06
