Social anxiety and interpretation of ambiguous smiles

This study investigated whether social anxiety facilitates the discrimination between genuine and ambiguous smiles. Socially anxious (N=20) and nonanxious (N=20) participants categorized as “happy” or “not happy” faces with either (1) a truly happy expression (i.e., happy eyes and a smile), (2) truly nonhappy expressions (e.g., angry eyes and an angry mouth), or (3) blended expressions with a smiling mouth and nonhappy (e.g., angry, sad, etc.) eyes. Results indicated that, relative to nonanxious participants, those high in social anxiety were more likely to judge as “not happy” any blended expression with nonhappy eyes, and they were faster in judging as “not happy” the blended expressions with angry, fearful, or disgusted eyes (but not those with sad, surprised, or neutral eyes). These results suggest, respectively, that social anxiety inhibits a benign interpretation of all the ambiguous expressions with a smile, and speeds up the detection of threatening eyes in such expressions. Importantly, no differences appeared as a function of social anxiety for truly happy or nonhappy faces. This rules out a response-bias explanation, and also reveals that social anxiety does not affect sensitivity in the recognition of prototypical expressions.     

Do women who succeed in male‐dominated domains help other women? The moderating role of gender identification

It is often expected that the first women to advance in male‐dominated fields will promote other women who follow them. Two studies test the hypothesis that some women show this expected pattern of promoting women but that others show the opposite pattern, favoring men over women. In two studies, women's gender identification moderated the extent to which they favored men over women when they advanced in a male‐dominated field. Specifically, the weaker women's gender identification, the more favoritism they showed for a male relative to a female subordinate. Gender identification did not moderate women's behavior in a context in which women were not underrepresented, pointing to the power of the situation in eliciting this relationship. Implications for the advancement of women in male‐dominated fields are discussed.     

Représentations sociales de la personne obèse et de l’obésité : effets de la situation de contact

This paper introduces a study about social representations of obese people and obesity. Two hundred normal-weighted women divided in two groups (presence vs absence of contact with an obese person) completed a word association tasks with inductive words “obese people” and “obesity”. Two instructions were proposed: one in which they responded for themselves (standard instruction) and another in which they responded for someone else (substitution instruction). Results of the Correspondences Factor Analysis support the hypothesis of an intergroup contact effect on the explored social representations’ organization. Participants in contact with obese people seem to have a more empathetic representation than those who have no contact. Indeed, when participants did not respond for themselves, counter-normative representations were produced: stereotypical elements and a judgment on the physical characteristics were expressed. These results were discussed regarding theories of intergroup contact and of social representations.     

No Postmaterialists in Foxholes: Postmaterialist Values,Nationalism, and National Threat in the People's Republic of China

In this article, I present findings from a survey experiment in which Chinese university students exposed to a treatment designed to increase feelings of national threat were—based on their responses to the four‐item postmaterialism values‐priority battery—significantly more likely to be classified as “pure materialists.” These findings are presented in support of the proposition that perception of a hostile international environment may tend to exaggerate citizens' authoritarian and nationalistic sentiments at the expense of more democratically favorable value orientations. Media and political figures in the West who rail against the evils of China's authoritarian leadership might believe that they are championing and encouraging democratic aspirations among the Chinese people, but might instead be inciting impulses and attitudes that are far less “democracy‐friendly.”     

Anxiety-related threat bias in recognition memory: the moderating effect of list composition and semantic-similarity effects

Individuals with high anxiety show bias for threatening information, but it is unclear whether this bias affects memory. Recognition memory studies have shown biases for recognising and rejecting threatening items in anxiety, prompting the need to identify moderating factors of this effect. This study focuses on the role of semantic similarity: the use of many semantically related threatening words could increase familiarity for those items and obscure anxiety-related differences in memory. To test this, two recognition memory experiments varied the proportion of threatening words in lists to manipulate the semantic-similarity effects. When similarity effects were reduced, participants with high trait anxiety were biased to respond “new” to threatening words, whereas when similarity effects were strong there was no effect of anxiety on memory bias. Analysis of the data with the drift diffusion model showed that the bias was due to differences in processing of the threatening stimuli rather than a simple response bias. These data suggest that the semantic similarity of the threatening words significantly affects the presence or absence of anxiety-related threat bias in recognition memory. The results indicate that trait anxiety is associated with a bias to decide that threatening stimuli were not previously studied, but only when semantic-similarity effects are controlled. Implications for theories of anxiety and future studies in this domain are discussed.     

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.     

‘Meet Me Halfway’ : Socio‐cultural Adaptation and Perceived Contact Willingness of Host Nationals as Predictors of Immigrants' Threat Perceptions

This three‐wave study investigated the interplay between perceived socio‐cultural adaptation and perceived willingness of the majority group to engage in contact, when predicting realistic and symbolic threats perceived by ethnic migrants from Russia to Finland. To sum up our key findings, the less immigrants perceived difficulties in socio‐cultural adaptation soon after migration, the more positive were their later perceptions of the majority group members' contact willingness. Majority's perceived contact willingness was associated with lower levels of perceived realistic threats, and perceived contact willingness and perceived socio‐cultural adaptation were both associated with lower levels of perceived symbolic threats. As regards practical implications of our findings for culturally diverse communities, equal efforts should be made to help newcomers' socio‐cultural adaptation and to support their positive intergroup interactions with majority group members. That way, the beneficial impact of both of these factors on immigrant integration could be maximized. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Threats to communion and agency mediate associations between stressor type and daily coping

Background and Objectives: Basic human values have been categorized into two dimensions: those that are self or agentically focused, and those that are other or communally focused. We apply this model to cognitive appraisals of stress and argue that threat appraisals also fall into these two dimensions. The mediating roles of communal and agentic threats in linking stressors with coping responses were examined. Design: A daily process methodology was used. Methods: Three-hundred and fifty undergraduate students were followed midday and evening over one week, completing structured electronic diaries regarding their experiences of the past half-day. Participants described stressors in open-ended format, which were then coded into social stress, achievement stress, and other stress categories. They also completed scales measuring stress appraisals and coping. Results: Communal threat mediated links between social stressors and empathic responding, support seeking, and confrontation. Agentic threat mediated links between achievement stressors and empathic responding, support seeking, confrontation, and problem solving. Conclusions: Individuals tend to cope in ways that maintain communion when they perceive communion to be threatened; they tend to cope in ways that maintain agency when they perceive agency to be threatened.     

Perceived threat and depression among patients with cancer: the moderating role of health locus of control

Illness perception was found to be a better predictor of psychological outcome among cancer patients than the objective characteristics of illness. The current study explored the association between the perceived threat of illness (a major aspect of illness perception) and depression among cancer patients. We examined the hypothesis that this association will be higher for persons with low External (others) or internal (self) Health Locus of Control (HLC) than for those with high HLC. The study took an exploratory approach regarding the role that different sources of control (external and internal) may assume. Fifty-seven cancer patients completed self-report measures of Perceived Life Threat (PLT), HLC and Depression. The possible moderating role of HLC on the relationship between PLT and Depression was examined. A significant relationship between perceived threat and depression was found only among participants reporting low levels of internal locus of control. The results support the hypothesis that perception of cancer as life threatening is important factor in determining the level of depression among cancer patients. The results also support the differentiation between internal and external HLC and suggest that internal HLC may be more relevant than external HLC in managing perceived threat. Internal locus of control can be interpreted as having a sense of agency and mastery which is important in managing the cognitive perception of the threat of illness. Further research is needed in order to determine the role of external HLC in managing perceived or actual threats.     

Disavowing White Identity: How Social Disgust can Change Social Identities

Recent work finds that the sense of solidarity some whites feel with their racial group is strongly associated with their political attitudes, particularly since the election of Barack Obama. Prior work has also noted that levels of this identity have been stable across time and data sources. We, however, document a notable decline in levels of white identity in both panel and cross-sectional national survey data immediately after the 2016 presidential election. Using a two-wave panel design, we examine the factors associated with this decline. We examine whether particular emotional reactions, especially disgust toward Donald Trump, pushed some whites away from their racial identity. We also consider the possibility that some whites may have felt that Trump's election reduced perceptions of racial or political threat, therefore lowering levels of white identity. We find the strongest support for the former hypothesis; the decline in white identity was driven mostly by whites expressing disgust toward Trump. Our results highlight the effect that the political environment can have on group identities and point in particular to the significant role that disgust may play in attenuating the strength of group solidarity.