ABSTRACT
The relative dynamics of approach and avoidance tendencies illustrate nature's method for promoting both the security and development of animals. That is, avoidance tendencies are activated more quickly, and increase more sharply with decreasing distance from areas expected to be injurious, than are tendencies to approach areas of expected pleasure. The patient experienced both the pleasurable anticipatory excitement about defeating the man and, subsequently, Talion Dread of punishment for being successful at the task. Perhaps the best way to think about the depth of explanations is in terms of the position of variables in the causal chain of events leading to behaviour. In mental illness, the self more or less tortures itself for experiencing sensations, thoughts, and feelings that are associated with cultural taboos. The sensations of physiological arousal, stimulated by events occurring a few moments prior to meeting the woman, were interpreted implicitly by the men as caused by the woman's attractiveness.
