Abstract: Animal behavior is driven by motivation essentially. Anger, as a special negative emotion, was thought to be related to the approach motivational system. Several studies, however, found that anger was associated with the avoidance motivational system. Some scholars explained these conflict findings by suggesting that the nonspecific component of anger was related to avoidance motivation, whereas its specific component had a stronger link to approach motivation. While some others linked approach motivation with anger-out, and avoidance motivation with anger-in. However, considerable data implied the association between anger and approach motivation were preferred and common, and the association between anger and avoidance motivation was conditioned and limited by the situation. More studies are needed to uncover the evolutionary anger-approach motivation link as well as its cognitive and neural mechanism, and to clarify the situational characters of anger-avoidance motivation link.

Key words: anger, motivation, approach, avoidance