In October 2016, Naval Petty Officer Jeffrey Thomas, under deployment to fight in the global war on terror, found himself amidst a barrage of enemy fire from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known perhaps better as ISIS (Simkins, 2018). Small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar fire exploded around him. After 10 hr, his convoy received orders to move out of the kill zone. They did, but within moments the lead vehicle rolled over and tripped one of the seven daisy-chained improvised explosive devices. His supervisor died and many more were injured. At that point, while still under heavy enemy fire, Thomas left his vehicle. In this mission, he was assigned to the Coronado-based Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 3, and he had received extensive training in identifying and dismantling bombs. He left his vehicle to sweep the area for explosives, diffusing them as he evaded the rockets and mortars impacting around him. Thomas cleared a path for medics to reach the disabled vehicles, evacuate casualties, and find their way out. As his commanding officer, Geoff Townsend, said, “Jeff knowingly exposed himself to hazards in order to protect the lives of his teammates and brothers in arms.” Thomas was awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest award for valor. Acts of heroism, such as Thomas’s, inspire gratitude and awe. They also perplex so many of us who try to envision what our own response might be under such terrifying conditions. We could imagine ourselves freezing in fear or turning tail to flee from the perilous situation. To knowingly and willingly lean in to the threat of harm is an act of considerable nobility and one that counters intuition. Why approach threats one wants to avoid? Scholer, Cornwell, and Higgins (this issue) provide an answer to this conundrum. According to their perspective, the seemingly discordant decision to approach threats when responding to a guiding drive to avoid harm is not an exception to motivational theories. It is instead a clear example of the importance of adopting a hierarchical approach to motivational models, one that differentiates higher level goals from the lower level actions in question. In this view, multiple motivational orientations of a perceiver can engage simultaneously and independently of one another by manifesting at different levels of the self-regulatory hierarchy. If one classifies goals and the actions serving them by the higher or lower level relationship to one another, what seems counterintuitive may not be. The authors offer examples that similarly flummox intuition and challenge motivational models that do not acknowledge the hierarchical nature of goal pursuit. The evidence and anecdotes they provide demonstrate, in much the same way as the case of Navy Petty Officer Jeffrey Thomas, that an overarching system-level goal of avoiding danger might be met by strategically approaching and engaging with the threat to neutralize it. For instance, the authors describe an investigation of rats’ responses to a noxious object—a metal tea bag that held a cotton ball soaked in bleach (Franks, Higgins, & Champagne, 2012). Now, in this particular context all the rats could have responded to the threatening foreign object by taking a different path through the maze and avoiding it all together. But they did not. Some of the rats responded to the bleached cotton ball by approaching it to bury it in the fresh bedding it sat on. In fact, the rats that approached the threat were the ones who had been bred to hold chronic avoidance-orientations. These specific animals were chronically motivated to avoid threats and in this particular context met that prepotent orientation through approach. As this example illustrates, there are advantages of differentiating between motivational proclivities generally (at the level of the system) and the particular motivational orientation that best serves to meet that goal in the moment (the strategic response). Such differentiation brings light to what might seem some otherwise particularly bewildering effects where actions appear inconsistent with motives. In our own investigations, we too have identified cases with our human participants that seem to defy intuition. We found evidence showing that the goal to avoid threat can be situated at the system level, whereas effective management or regulation of that high-level goal may be best met through an approach orientation at the strategic level. In counterpart, we have also found cases in which approach goals are met by avoidance behaviors. These results contradict intuition but are predicted by and provide additional

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澄清难题：目标层次结构如何解决动机响应中的看似矛盾

2016 年 10 月，被部署参加全球反恐战争的海军士官杰弗里·托马斯（Jeffrey Thomas）发现自己身处伊拉克和叙利亚伊斯兰国（或许更广为人知的 ISIS）的敌人炮火之中（Simkins，2018 年）。轻武器、火箭榴弹和迫击炮在他周围爆炸。10 小时后，他的车队接到命令离开杀伤区。他们做到了，但很快，领头的车辆翻倒并绊倒了七个菊花链简易爆炸装置中的一个。他的上司去世了，还有更多人受伤。那时，托马斯还在敌人的猛烈火力下离开了他的车。在这次任务中，他被分配到位于科罗纳多的爆炸物处理机动部队 3，并接受了识别和拆除炸弹方面的广泛培训。他离开他的车去清扫该地区寻找炸药，并在他避开撞击他周围的火箭和迫击炮弹时将它们扩散开。托马斯为医务人员开辟了一条通往残障车辆、疏散伤员并找到出路的道路。正如他的指挥官杰夫·汤森德所说，“杰夫故意让自己暴露在危险中，以保护他的队友和战友的生命。” 托马斯被授予银星奖，这是全国第三高的英勇奖。英雄主义的行为，如托马斯的，激发了感激和敬畏。它们也让我们中的许多人感到困惑，他们试图想象在如此可怕的条件下我们自己的反应可能会是什么。我们可以想象自己在恐惧中僵住或扭着尾巴逃离危险的境地。明知而心甘情愿地接受伤害的威胁是一种相当高尚的行为，也是一种违背直觉的行为。为什么要接近人们想要避免的威胁？Scholer、Cornwell 和 Higgins（本期）为这个难题提供了答案。根据他们的观点，在回应避免伤害的指导性驱动力时，处理威胁的看似不一致的决定并不是动机理论的例外。相反，它是对动机模型采用分层方法的重要性的一个明显例子，该方法将较高级别的目标与所讨论的较低级别的行动区分开来。在这种观点中，感知者的多种动机取向可以通过表现在自我调节等级的不同层次上而同时且彼此独立地参与。如果将目标和为目标服务的行动分类为彼此之间的较高或较低级别的关系，那么似乎违反直觉的可能并非如此。作者提供的例子同样会混淆直觉并挑战不承认目标追求的等级性质的动机模型。他们提供的证据和轶事以与海军士官杰弗里·托马斯的案例大致相同的方式表明，通过战略性地接近和应对威胁以消除危险，可以实现避免危险的总体系统级目标。例如，作者描述了一项关于老鼠对有毒物体反应的调查——一个金属茶包，里面装有一个浸泡在漂白剂中的棉球（Franks, Higgins, & Champagne, 2012）。现在，在这种特殊情况下，所有老鼠都可以通过选择不同的路径穿过迷宫并一起避开它来对威胁的异物做出反应。但他们没有。一些老鼠对漂白棉球的反应是靠近它，将它埋在它所坐的新鲜床上用品中。事实上，接近威胁的老鼠是那些被培育成具有长期回避倾向的老鼠。这些特定的动物长期受到避免威胁的动机，并且在这种特殊情况下通过方法满足了这种优势取向。正如这个例子所说明的那样，区分一般的动机倾向（在系统层面）和最能满足当前目标的特定动机取向（战略反应）是有好处的。这种区分揭示了在行为与动机不一致的情况下可能看起来特别令人眼花缭乱的效果。在我们自己的调查中，我们也发现了人类参与者似乎无视直觉的案例。我们发现证据表明，避免威胁的目标可以位于系统级别，而对该高级目标的有效管理或监管可能最好通过战略级别的方法导向来实现。相反，我们还发现了通过回避行为满足接近目标的案例。这些结果与直觉相矛盾，但被预测并提供了额外的 我们也发现了人类参与者似乎无视直觉的案例。我们发现证据表明，避免威胁的目标可以位于系统级别，而对该高级目标的有效管理或监管可能最好通过战略级别的方法导向来实现。相反，我们还发现了通过回避行为满足接近目标的案例。这些结果与直觉相矛盾，但被预测并提供了额外的 我们也发现了人类参与者似乎无视直觉的案例。我们发现证据表明，避免威胁的目标可以位于系统级别，而对该高级目标的有效管理或监管可能最好通过战略级别的方法导向来实现。相反，我们还发现了通过回避行为满足接近目标的案例。这些结果与直觉相矛盾，但被预测并提供了额外的 我们还发现了通过回避行为达到接近目标的案例。这些结果与直觉相矛盾，但被预测并提供了额外的 我们还发现了通过回避行为达到接近目标的案例。这些结果与直觉相矛盾，但被预测并提供了额外的