Reward responsiveness (BAS) facilitates contingency awareness in appetitive conditioning

Individual differences in reinforcement sensitivity may shape associative learning processes. We investigated how behavioral inhibition and activation systems (BIS/BAS), that is, variation in avoidance versus approach tendencies, modulate awareness of stimulus–outcome contingencies during appetitive conditioning (with monetary rewards) and aversive conditioning (with electric shocks) in N = 62 uninstructed participants (54 women). BAS “reward responsiveness” was found to predict subjective expectancy of appetitive (but not aversive) outcomes, independent of extraversion and neuroticism. BIS was unrelated to contingency awareness. Results highlight reward sensitivity as a distinct trait, facilitating conscious detection and processing of reward contingencies.