Predicting athletic performance from cardiovascular indexes of challenge and threat

This study examined the relationship between pre-performance motivational states (challenge vs. threat) and subsequent performance in athletic competition. Prior to the season, college baseball and softball players imagined and gave a speech about a specific baseball/softball playing situation while cardiovascular indexes of challenge and threat were recorded. These physiological challenge/threat indexes significantly predicted athletic performance during the subsequent season, such that players who experienced challenge in the laboratory performed better relative to those who experienced threat. The implications for personnel selection and the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat are discussed.     

Social challenge and threat predict performance and cardiovascular responses during competitive video gaming

Individuals tend to compare themselves with others, and the results of these self-evaluations influence subsequent performance. When individuals perceive an advantage over their rivals (challenge-type response), they achieve higher levels of performance. According to the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat, benefits of favourable appraisals are partly mediated by cardiovascular efficiency, which is increased by challenge and decreased by threat evaluations. In this study, we tested whether the biopsychosocial model can be extended to predict behavioural outcomes in esports. We expected that challenge-type evaluations would increase performance compared to threat-type evaluations. Eighty-two men were assigned to a challenge or threat group and completed three rounds of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – a video game popular in esports. Individuals with the highest scores were awarded cash prizes. Cardiovascular markers of challenge and threat, cognitive appraisals, and game scores were recorded. We manipulated the social challenge and social threat evaluation by informing participants that their performance in the initial round was superior (challenge) or inferior (threat) compared with other gamers. We found that individuals with more gaming experience, believed they were better than other gamers, had higher heart rate and, in turn, achieved higher scores. These effects were related to initial situational appraisal at the baseline and were not boosted by feedback provided during the actual performance. These results are the first to document that social comparisons among gamers are accurate in the prediction of future physiological and behavioural outcomes. Furthermore, these findings emphasize that physiological responses mediate relationships between action-related cognitions and performance.     

On the power of autobiographical memories: from threat and challenge appraisals to actual behaviour

Autobiographical memories are a major feature of mental life in humans. However, research on the influence of autobiographical recall on actual behaviour is scarce. We predicted and found that general memories of failure and specific memories of success resulted in worse performance than general memories of success and specific memories of failure. This performance pattern was mediated by task appraisal, suggesting that autobiographical memories (of failure and success) impact performance by shaping the perception of the upcoming task. Combined with the fact that these effects occurred even when the content of autobiographical memories was unrelated to the upcoming task, the present research represents an important step forward in understanding how autobiographical recall influences actual behaviour.     

Physiological markers of challenge and threat mediate the effects of performance-based goals on performance

We predicted that adopting a performance-approach vs. performance-avoidance goal would lead to physiological responses characteristic of psychological states of challenge vs. threat appraisals, respectively. Furthermore, we predicted that these states would mediate the effects of goals on performance. Twenty-seven undergraduate females performed a task described as identifying either exceptionally strong performers (performance-approach goal) or exceptionally weak performers (performance-avoidance goal). Participants’ cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) was recorded while they performed the task. As predicted, participants in the performance-approach goal condition performed better on the task than did those in the performance-avoidance goal condition. Also as predicted, those in the former condition exhibited a challenge pattern of CVR whereas those in the latter condition exhibited a threat pattern of CVR. Furthermore, physiological responses mediated the effects of performance-based goals on performance.     

Turning social identity threat into challenge: Status stability and cardiovascular reactivity during inter-group competition

The current research examined the occurrence of threat and challenge in low and high status groups resulting from the stability of inter-group status differences during an inter-group competition. It was hypothesized that members of low status groups are relatively threatened when status differences are stable, but that this threat turns into a challenge when status differences become unstable. By contrast, unstable status relations were predicted to lead to threat in members of high status groups. Participants (N = 40) were categorized in minimal groups. Inter-group status differences, and the stability of these differences, were manipulated by providing feedback on three group tasks. During these tasks cardiovascular threat and challenge responses were measured following the biopsychosocial model [BPS; Blascovich, J., & Tomaka, J. (1996). The biopsychosocial model of arousal regulation. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 28, pp. 1-51). New York: Academic Press]. Results were in line with expectations and are discussed in terms of the BPS model and social identity theory.     

Social anxiety and difficulty disengaging threat: evidence from eye-tracking

Theoretical models of social phobia propose that biased attention contributes to the maintenance of symptoms; however these theoretical models make opposing predictions. Specifically, whereas Rapee and Heimberg (1997) suggested the biases are characterised by hypervigilance to threat cues and difficulty disengaging attention from threat, Clark and Wells (1995) suggested that threat cues are largely avoided. Previous research has been limited by the almost exclusive reliance on behavioural response times to experimental tasks to provide an index of attentional biases. The current study evaluated the relationship between the time-course of attention and symptoms of social anxiety and depression. Forty-two young adults completed a dot-probe task with emotional faces while eye-movement data were collected. The results revealed that increased social anxiety was associated with attention to emotional (rather than neutral) faces over time as well as difficulty disengaging attention from angry expressions; some evidence was found for a relationship between heightened depressive symptoms and increased attention to fear faces.     

The threat vs. challenge of car parking for women: How self- and group affirmation affect cardiovascular responses

This study examines cardiovascular responses indicating challenge (vs. threat) during motivated performance of women under social identity threat. Low gender identified women should primarily be concerned with their personal identity and self-worth, leading them to benefit from self-affirmation under social identity threat. Highly identified women, conversely, should care more for the value of their group and benefit more from group affirmation. Among 64 female participants social identity threat was induced by emphasizing gender differences in car-parking ability. Then, participants received an opportunity to affirm the self or the group and worked on a car-parking task. During this task, cardiovascular challenge versus threat responses were assessed according to the biopsychosocial model (Blascovich, 2008). Results confirmed predictions by showing that self-affirmation elicited cardiovascular patterns indicating challenge in low identifiers, while group affirmation elicited challenge in high identifiers. Theoretical implications for work on social identity are discussed.     

Religious coping and the threat of heart transplantation

The concern of this article is to examine the relationship between religiousness and state-and-trait anxiety in a sample of cardiac transplantation candidates. Religiousness was made operational by integrating measures of religious orientation and religious coping with cluster analysis to form religious coping profiles. Three religious coping profiles were identified:Deferring/Collaborators, Self-Directors, andEclectic. Analyses of variance indicated that coping profiles were significantly different in their report of trait anxiety, such that the Eclectics reported a good deal more trait anxiety than did the Self-Directors. This leads to a discussion of the implications for the clinical presentation of religious coping profiles in cardiac transplantation candidates.     

Evidence of more immanent justice responding in adults than children: A challenge to traditional developmental theories

Three studies investigated developmental changes in immanent justice responding by asking participants to respond to vignettes in which a person's bad behaviour was followed by a negative consequence. Study 1 consisted of 152 sixth graders and 128 college students and presented participants with a vignette that examined the notion of bad people deserving to get ill. Study 2 consisted of 185 sixth graders and 154 college students and examined whether children and adults reasoned that that bad behaviour would actually cause the illness. Study 3 consisted of 96 third graders, 115 fifth graders, and 114 college students, and presented participants with vignettes that examined negative behaviours and consequences. Contrary to expectations based on traditional and contemporary developmental theories, all three studies demonstrated more evidence of immanent justice responding among adults than among elementary school children. These results call into question the comprehensiveness of traditional and contemporary developmental theories, and suggest the need to examine cognitive reasoning in adulthood when constructing developmental theories.     

Parental Divorce and Adult Religiosity: Evidence from the General Social Survey

This study explores the relationship between parental divorce and religiosity, including religious affiliation change and church attendance. Data from the 1991, 1998, and 2008 waves of the General Social Survey provide information both on current religiosity and religiosity in respondents’ families of origin. The results suggest that living with a single divorced parent—but not a remarried or widowed parent—increases church attendance and the odds of a change in religious affiliation. Catholics and Protestants from divorced families are disproportionately likely to become apostates as adults, while people growing up in unaffiliated divorced families more often become affiliated as adults. However, parental divorce has fewer effects on the likelihood of moving from one denomination to another.     

Social Interactions and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from Latin America

In this paper, we seek to examine the effect of social comparisons and of social capital on life satisfaction over a sample of Latin American countries. We test if, through social influence and exposure, social capital is either an enhancer or appeaser of the effect of social comparisons of material conditions in life satisfaction. Using the Latinobarómetro Survey (2007) we find, contrary to the existing literature that, the better others perform in the material dimension, the happier the individual is. We also find that social capital is among the strongest correlates of individuals’ life satisfaction. Our findings suggest that social contacts may enhance the effect of social comparisons, which is more intense for those who perform worse in their reference group.     

反刍思维与社交焦虑的关系:来自元分析的证据

反刍思维与社交焦虑的关系一直存在争议,为探究这些研究结论不一致的原因,本研究采用元分析技术研究反刍思维与社交焦虑的关系.综合国内国外研究42篇,中文文献8篇,英文文献34篇,共53个独立样本,总样本23032人.研究结果显示,反刍思维与社交焦虑呈高度正相关(r=0.42),反刍思维与社交焦虑的关系受到年龄段、反刍思维使...     

How the threat of losses makes people <Emphasis Type="Italic">explore</Emphasis> more than the promise of gains

Until recently, loss aversion has been inferred exclusively from choice asymmetries in the loss and gain domains. This study examines the impact of the prospect of losses on exploratory search in a situation in which exploration is costly. Taking advantage of the largest available data set of decisions from experience, analyses showed that most people explore payoff distributions more under the threat of a loss than under the promise of a gain. This behavioral regularity thus occurs in both costly search and cost-free search (see Lejarraga, Hertwig, & Gonzalez, Cognition, 124, 334–342, 2012). Furthermore, a model comparison identified the simple win-stay-lose-shift heuristic as a likely candidate mechanism behind the loss–gain exploration asymmetry observed. In contrast, models assuming loss aversion failed to reproduce the asymmetry. Moreover, the asymmetry was not simply a precursor of loss aversion but a phenomenon separate from it. These findings are consistent with the recently proposed notion of intensified vigilance in the face of potential losses.     

The threat simulation theory of the evolutionary function of dreaming: Evidence from dreams of traumatized children

The threat simulation theory of dreaming (TST) () states that dream consciousness is essentially an ancient biological defence mechanism, evolutionarily selected for its capacity to repeatedly simulate threatening events. Threat simulation during dreaming rehearses the cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and threat avoidance, leading to increased probability of reproductive success during human evolution. One hypothesis drawn from TST is that real threatening events encountered by the individual during wakefulness should lead to an increased activation of the system, a threat simulation response, and therefore, to an increased frequency and severity of threatening events in dreams. Consequently, children who live in an environment in which their physical and psychological well-being is constantly threatened should have a highly activated dream production and threat simulation system, whereas children living in a safe environment that is relatively free of such threat cues should have a weakly activated system. We tested this hypothesis by analysing the content of dream reports from severely traumatized and less traumatized Kurdish children and ordinary, non-traumatized Finnish children. Our results give support for most of the predictions drawn from TST. The severely traumatized children reported a significantly greater number of dreams and their dreams included a higher number of threatening dream events. The dream threats of traumatized children were also more severe in nature than the threats of less traumatized or non-traumatized children.     

人类社会认知的神经机制:来自社会脑研究的证据

社会认知是指从环境互动的过程中推测他人意图、情感和思想等内部状态的心理加工过程。社会脑假说认为,包括人类在内的灵长类大脑内肯定存在着一个旨在认识和理解他人表情的神经机制,在社会交往中通过该中枢迅速处理与他人相互作用的各种信息。本文通过回顾社会脑的构成与基本功能,镜像神经元的发现及功能,以及社会脑、镜像神经元对社会认知影响的相关研究,提出了人类社会认知不同于其他物种的三个主要区别。     

Social influence, marriage, and the heart: cardiovascular consequences of interpersonal control in husbands and wives.

Human and experimental animal research suggests that social stress in general--and chronic, effortful attempts to exert social control in particular--may contribute to cardiovascular disease. We examined the effects of exerting social influence or control on cardiovascular responses in married couples. Compared to husbands discussing a problem with their wives, husbands attempting to influence or persuade their wives displayed larger increases in systolic blood pressure (SBP) before and during the discussion. Furthermore, these physiological effects were accompanied by increases in anger and a more hostile and coldly assertive interpersonal style. Although wives who engaged in social influence attempts displayed generally similar behavior, they did not show the elevated SBP response or anger. We discuss the results in terms of the social context of cardiovascular reactivity and potential marital factors in cardiovascular health.     

Task demands and the pressures of everyday life: associations between cardiovascular reactivity and work blood pressure and heart rate.

Associations between cardiovascular stress reactivity and blood pressure and heart rate recorded in everyday life were hypothesized to depend on the stressfulness of the ambulatory monitoring period relative to standardized tasks and on activity levels at the time of measurement. One hundred two female and 60 male school teachers carried out high- and low-demand tasks under standardized conditions and ambulatory monitoring during the working day. Stress ratings during the day were close to those recorded during the low-demand task. Reactions to the low-demand task were significant predictors of ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate independent of baseline, age, gender, and body mass. Associations were more consistent for ambulatory recordings taken when participants were seated than when they were standing and when the ambulatory monitoring day was considered to be as stressful as usual or more stressful than usual, and not less stressful than usual. Laboratory-field associations of cardiovascular activity depend in part on the congruence of stressfulness and physical activity level in the 2 situations.     

Social exclusion reduces the sense of agency: Evidence from intentional binding

Social exclusion is known to induce an immediate threat to one’s perceived sense of control. The sense of agency is an important human experience, strongly associated with volitional action. Healthy participants perceive the temporal interval between a voluntary action and its effect to be shorter than the same interval when it separates an involuntary action and effect. This temporal illusion is known as intentional binding and is used experimentally to index the implicit sense of agency. The current study investigated whether activating memories of social exclusion alters intentional binding. Results show that action-effect interval estimates are significantly longer after remembering an episode of social exclusion than after remembering an episode of social inclusion, or a no priming baseline condition. This study is the first to demonstrate the link between feelings of social exclusion and the pre-reflective sense of agency.