Body ownership: When feeling and knowing diverge

Individuals with the peculiar disturbance of ‘overcompleteness’ experience an intense desire to amputate one of their healthy limbs, describing a sense of disownership for it (Body Integrity Identity Disorder – BIID). This condition is similar to somatoparaphrenia, the acquired delusion that one’s own limb belongs to someone else. In ten individuals with BIID, we measured skin conductance response to noxious stimuli, delivered to the accepted and non-accepted limb, touching the body part or simulating the contact (stimuli approach the body without contacting it), hypothesizing that these individuals have responses like somatoparaphrenic patients, who previously showed reduced pain anticipation, when the threat was directed to the disowned limb. We found reduced anticipatory response to stimuli approaching, but not contacting, the unwanted limb. Conversely, stimuli contacting the non-accepted body-part, induced stronger SCR than those contacting the healthy parts, suggesting that feeling of ownership is critically related to a proper processing of incoming threats.     

Identity bifurcation in response to stereotype threat: Women and mathematics

Three studies explored women’s bifurcation of feminine identity as a response to threatening stereotypes in the domain of mathematics. Study 1 demonstrated that women in a math class who previously had completed a large number of math courses disavowed “feminine characteristics” strongly associated with stereotypes about women’s potential for math success (e.g., flirtatiousness, planning to have children) but not characteristics perceived to be weakly associated with these stereotypes (e.g., empathy, nurturance), more than women who had completed fewer math courses. Studies 2 and 3 directly manipulated stereotype threat by presenting a scientific article reporting stereotype-consistent sex differences in math aptitude. As predicted, women strongly identified with mathematics responded to this threatening article by disavowing feminine characteristics strongly associated, but not those weakly associated, with the relevant negative stereotypes, while women not strongly identified with mathematics showed no such differentiation in response. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

The role of esteem and coping in response to a threat communication

Two experiments examined the relations among self-esteem, perceived competency to cope, and actual coping behaviors following a threat communication. Leventhal's “parallel response model” (in Advances in experimental social psychology, L. Berkowitz (Ed.), New York: Academic Press, 1970, Vol. 5) predicts that low-esteem subjects will show deficits in both competency and coping behaviors. Experiment 1 manipulated threat level of a tetanus communication. Low-esteem subjects showed coping deficits on measures of free associations, free recall, fatalism, and coping. Threat groups differed only on fear and danger measures. Experiment 2 manipulated the fear level of an antismoking film and used false feedback to alter perceived competency. Positive feedback increased perceived competency to quit smoking among low-esteem subjects only. Without feedback, low-esteem subjects reduced smoking less than high-esteem subjects; positive feedback reversed the pattern. The discussion argued that, consistent with Leventhal's model, the low-esteem coping deficit has two independent causes: (1) excessive concern with fear, and (2) inadequate perceived competency.     

Body ownership and beyond: Connections between cognitive neuroscience and linguistic typology

During the past few decades, two disciplines that rarely come together—namely, cognitive neuroscience and linguistic typology—have been generating remarkably similar results regarding the representational domain of personal possessions. Research in cognitive neuroscience indicates that although the core self is grounded in body ownership, the extended self encompasses a variety of noncorporeal possessions, especially those that play a key role in defining one’s identity. And research in linguistic typology indicates that many languages around the world contain a distinct grammatical construction for encoding what is commonly called “inalienable” possession—a category of owned objects that almost always includes body parts, but that also tends to include several other kinds of personally relevant entities. Both of these independent lines of investigation are summarized, and a number of interdisciplinary connections between them are discussed.     

The renegotiation of social identities in response to a threat to self-evaluation maintenance

Two experiments examine the strategic re-negotiation of social identities as a method of alleviating threats to self-evaluation. Participants were given a partner who shared one, and had one non-shared identity. After completing a self-relevant or non-self-relevant task, participants received either no feedback or learned that they had performed poorly compared to the partner. Participants showed identity distancing in response to being outperformed on a self-relevant task, but affiliation in response to being outperformed on a non-self-relevant task. This effect was reversed when participants were given the opportunity to self-affirm after the feedback. Overall, the results provide evidence that individuals are quite adept at altering their self-categorizations and that self-evaluation serves an important role in identity selection. Results are discussed in relation to the substitutability of self-esteem maintenance mechanisms and self-definition.     

Lending a hand: social regulation of the neural response to threat

Social contact promotes enhanced health and well-being, likely as a function of the social regulation of emotional responding in the face of various life stressors. For this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 16 married women were subjected to the threat of electric shock while holding their husband's hand, the hand of an anonymous male experimenter, or no hand at all. Results indicated a pervasive attenuation of activation in the neural systems supporting emotional and behavioral threat responses when the women held their husband's hand. A more limited attenuation of activation in these systems occurred when they held the hand of a stranger. Most strikingly, the effects of spousal hand-holding on neural threat responses varied as a function of marital quality, with higher marital quality predicting less threat-related neural activation in the right anterior insula, superior frontal gyrus, and hypothalamus during spousal, but not stranger, hand-holding.     

Attention and anticipation in response to varying levels of uncertain threat: An ERP study

Individual differences in responding to uncertainty have been proposed as a key mechanism of how anxiety disorders develop and are maintained. However, most empirical work has compared responding to uncertain versus certain threat dichotomously. This is a significant limitation because uncertainty in daily life occurs along a continuum of probability, ranging from very low to high chances of negative outcomes. The current study investigated (1) how varying levels of uncertainty impact attention and anticipatory emotion, and (2) how these effects are moderated by individual differences in risk factors for anxiety disorders, particularly intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and worry. Participants (n = 65) completed a card task in which the probability of shock varied across trials. Two event-related potential components were examined: the P2, an index of attention, and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN), an index of anticipation. The P2 tracked the level of uncertainty and was smaller for more uncertain outcomes. Participants higher in IU exhibited greater differences in the P2 across levels of uncertainty. The SPN did not track specific levels of uncertainty but was largest for uncertain threat compared with certain threat and safety. Greater worry was associated with blunting of the SPN in anticipation of all outcomes. Thus, attention appears to be sensitive to variations in uncertainty, whereas anticipation seems sensitive to uncertainty globally. The two processes appear to be distinctly related to anxiety risk factors. These results highlight the value of examining multiple aspects of anticipatory responding to varying levels of uncertainty for understanding risk for anxiety disorders.     

Dreading the boards: stress response to a competitive audition characterized by social-evaluative threat

The capacity of psychosocial stressors to provoke the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis has been demonstrated to vary depending upon a number of psychological factors. Laboratory stressors characterized by social-evaluative threat are proposed to be the most efficacious in the elicitation of a cortisol stress response. Salivary cortisol, cardiovascular, and subjective responses of 16 healthy adults facing a naturalistic stressor characterized by social-evaluative threat (competitive performance auditions) were examined. Audition exposure was sufficient to provoke significant cortisol, arterial blood pressure (systolic and diastolic), and subjective stress responses. Cortisol response reactivity (area under the curve with respect to increase [AUCi]) also correlated with participants' subjective rating of social-evaluative threat. The competitive performance audition context is therefore considered a promising context in which to further explore cortisol responsivity to social-evaluative threat.     

Rising to the threat: Reducing stereotype threat by reframing the threat as a challenge

In two experiments, we found that the performance-inhibiting consequences of stereotype threat were eliminated when the threat was subtly reframed as a challenge. In Experiment 1, Black school children in North Carolina completed a 10-item mathematics test. Participants who reported their race before taking the test performed more poorly than participants who reported their race after completing the test, unless the test was framed as a challenge. Experiment 2 replicated this effect with undergraduates at a prestigious university. When reminded that they graduated from high schools that were poorly represented at the university, they performed more poorly than their peers on a math test. However, when the test was reframed as a challenge, this threat had no effect on their performance. These findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical applications for both educational and athletic training.     

Anxiety and the allocation of attention to threat

Using a probe detection technique we have recently demonstrated that anxious subjects consistently deploy attention towards threat-related stimuli, whereas non-anxious controls tend to move attention away from such material (MacLeod, Mathews, & Tata, 1986).

The current study employed the same paradigm but attempted to distinguish the role of trait and state anxiety by testing high- and low-trait students when state anxiety was relatively low (12 weeks before a major examination) and again when it was relatively high (one week before this examination). High-trait subjects alone tended to shift attention towards generally threatening material on both test occasions. Results for examination-related stimuli were more complex. Increased proximity to the examination was associated with an increase in attentional bias towards such threat stimuli in high-trait subjects, but with increased attentional avoidance of such stimuli in low-trait subjects. It is suggested that the attentional response to currently relevant stress-related stimuli may be associated with neither trait nor state anxiety alone, but with an interactive function involving both these variables. These results are discussed in relation to existing models of emotion and cognition, and alternative interpretations of the findings are considered.     

Body weight and response acquisition with delayed reinforcement.

The relation between body weight and responding established with unsignaled delayed reinforcement was investigated. In three experiments, naive rats were deprived to either 70%, 80%, or 90% of ad libitum weight and were then exposed to tandem variable-interval 15-s differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior 30-s schedules. The tandem schedule defined a resetting unsignaled delay-of-reinforcement procedure. In the first experiment, speed of magazine training, acquisition of lever pressing, and final rate of lever pressing were related to body weight. In the next experiment, lever pressing was established and maintained in rats that were magazine trained at 70% of ad libitum weight but that were then exposed to the delay procedure at 90% of ad libitum weight. Responding did not change consistently either across or within subjects in subsequent conditions in which body weight was manipulated. In the final experiment, lever pressing was established and maintained with delayed reinforcement in the absence of magazine training for each of 2 rats at 70% and for 1 of 2 rats at 90% of ad libitum weight. The results further illuminate the conditions under which responding can be established in the absence of training and when such responses are reinforced only following an unsignaled delay period.     

Stress on the dance floor: the cortisol stress response to social-evaluative threat in competitive ballroom dancers

The social self-preservation theory states that humans have a fundamental motivation to preserve the social self and that threats to the social self perturb biological markers such as cortisol. Five studies were designed to examine the cortisol response to competitive ballroom dancing as a paradigm for real-life social-evaluative threat. Competitive dancing produced substantial increases in cortisol compared to a control day. These increases were not due to the physical strain of dancing and were greater than those found during social-evaluative laboratory stressors. Responses did not habituate across competitions and were mostly elevated under highly focused conditions of threat (couple vs. group competition). These findings support the notion of a social self-preservation system that is physiologically responsive to threats to the social self.     

When love is not blind: rumination impairs implicit affect regulation in response to romantic relationship threat

The present research examined how rumination influences implicit affect regulation in response to romantic relationship threat. In three studies, the disposition to ruminate impaired the ability to maintain positive feelings about the romantic partner in the face of explicit or implicit reminders of relationship threatening events. In Study 1, a high disposition to ruminate was correlated with impaired down-regulation of negative feelings toward the partner in response to a hurtful relationship incident. Two follow-up studies manipulated relationship threat explicitly through an experiential recall procedure (Study 2) or implicitly through a subliminal evaluative-conditioning procedure (Study 3). In both studies only individuals with low disposition to ruminate were able to ward off negative feelings and maintain positive feelings toward the partner. These findings illuminate the role of implicit affect regulation in the context of relationship threat-and how it is inextricably connected with the processes underlying rumination.     

When love is not blind: Rumination impairs implicit affect regulation in response to romantic relationship threat

The present research examined how rumination influences implicit affect regulation in response to romantic relationship threat. In three studies, the disposition to ruminate impaired the ability to maintain positive feelings about the romantic partner in the face of explicit or implicit reminders of relationship threatening events. In Study 1, a high disposition to ruminate was correlated with impaired down-regulation of negative feelings toward the partner in response to a hurtful relationship incident. Two follow-up studies manipulated relationship threat explicitly through an experiential recall procedure (Study 2) or implicitly through a subliminal evaluative-conditioning procedure (Study 3). In both studies only individuals with low disposition to ruminate were able to ward off negative feelings and maintain positive feelings toward the partner. These findings illuminate the role of implicit affect regulation in the context of relationship threat—and how it is inextricably connected with the processes underlying rumination.     

Body ownership affects visual perception of object size by rescaling the visual representation of external space

Size perception is most often explained by a combination of cues derived from the visual system. However, this traditional cue approach neglects the role of the observer’s body beyond mere visual comparison. In a previous study, we used a full-body illusion to show that objects appear larger and farther away when participants experience a small artificial body as their own and that objects appear smaller and closer when they assume ownership of a large artificial body (“Barbie-doll illusion”; van der Hoort, Guterstam, & Ehrsson, PLoS ONE, 6(5), e20195, 2011). The first aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that this own-body-size effect is distinct from the role of the seen body as a direct familiar-size cue. To this end, we developed a novel setup that allowed for occlusion of the artificial body during the presentation of test objects. Our results demonstrate that the feeling of ownership of an artificial body can alter the perceived sizes of objects without the need for a visible body. Second, we demonstrate that fixation shifts do not contribute to the own-body-size effect. Third, we show that the effect exists in both peri-personal space and distant extra-personal space. Finally, through a meta-analysis, we demonstrate that the own-body-size effect is independent of and adds to the classical visual familiar-size cue effect. Our results suggest that, by changing body size, the entire spatial layout rescales and new objects are now perceived according to this rescaling, without the need to see the body.     

When threat to society becomes a threat to oneself: Implications for right‐wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice

The relationships between threat on one hand and right‐wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice on the other were investigated in a heterogeneous sample (N = 588). Specifically, we considered the perception of economic and terroristic threats in terms of their consequences at the societal and personal levels. Previous studies revealed that societal consequences of threat, rather than personal consequences, are related to right‐wing attitudes. However, the present results challenge these findings. More specifically, three important results emerged. First, items probing the distinct threat levels loaded on separate dimensions for economic and terroristic threat, validating the distinction between societal and personal threat consequences. Second, consistent with previous research, this study revealed that perceived societal consequences of threat yield strong and robust relationships with all target variables. However, personal consequences of threat were also associated with higher levels of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and ethnic prejudice in particular. Third, societal and personal consequences of threat interacted in explaining the target variables. More specifically, feeling personally threatened by terrorism was only related to higher levels of RWA in the presence of low levels of threat to society, whereas experiencing personal economic threat was only related to higher levels of SDO and ethnic prejudice when high societal economic threat was experienced. In sum, although the perception of societal consequences of threat plays a prominent role in explaining right‐wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice, the perception of being personally affected by threat is also associated with higher levels of RWA and SDO, and especially ethnic prejudice.