Effects of preference on displacement in approach-avoidance conflict.

This experiment reexamined displacement as originally formulated by Murray and Berkun. Similarity to the goal and spatial placement of the alleys were manipulated with an additional variable of brightness (black) and texture (hardware cloth floor) preference in rats. It was found that 5s traveled least down the white smooth-floor alleys, midway down the gray screen-floor alleys, and farthest down the black hardware cloth-floor alleys. This occurred regardless of the spatial arrangement of the alleys or the color of the alley in which 5s received the initial approach-avoidance training. Furthermore, 5s trained in the nonpreferred (white) alleys took a greater number of trials to recover from approach-avoidance conflict than Ss trained in the preferred (black) alleys. The importance of a preference variable in studies of conflict behavior is stressed.