Fixated on rejection: Attentional blindness following socially rejecting faces in people with defensive self-esteem

People with defensive self-esteem (high explicit and low implicit self-esteem) respond more negatively to ego threat than do those with secure (high explicit and implicit) self-esteem. We examined whether they would also be more attentive to a cue indicating the presence of such threat–namely, a face signaling social rejection. In a rapid serial visual presentation task, participants with defensive self-esteem made more errors than those with secure self-esteem following a picture of a rejecting face than following either an accepting face or a negative control image. Our findings suggest a possible relationship between defensive self-esteem and rejection sensitivity. Potential negative ramifications of this sensitivity to rejection cues are discussed.     

Assessing threats of violence: Professional skill or common sense?

When faced with threats of violence, it is of great importance to assess the risk for actual harm to occur. Over the last decades, this task has developed into a domain of its own and professionals have specialised in threat assessment . However, it is yet unknown whether professional experience affects the quality of threat assessments. The present study examined how threat assessment professionals (N  = 44), university students (N  = 44), and laypersons (N  = 45) assessed the risk for violence in three fictitious cases. The assessments (i.e., assigning risk values to different pieces of information) were found to be strikingly similar across the three groups. Yet, professionals agreed more with one another on their assessments, and professionals identified more relevant (empirically supported) threat cues when given the opportunity to request additional information. These results suggest that threat assessment professionals know better than nonprofessionals what information to look for, and hence, they may contribute most in the process of gathering information to clarify the threat. Such knowledge can help to optimise the use of expertise, which may improve the quality of threat assessments. The current findings can be of value to those who consult threat assessment professionals, as well as to the professionals themselves.     

Effect of negative emotion on visual attention: Automatic capture by fear‐related stimuli1

Abstract: In this study, we examined the effect of threatening pictures (e.g., snakes and spiders) on control of spatial attention using a probe detection task. In addition to attentional capture by the threatening stimuli (Unpredictable task), the effects of affective valence of the pictures on the voluntary control of attention were explored (Predictable task). Results showed that reaction time (RT) was facilitated to the probe that appeared at the location of threatening stimuli when it occurred in the right visual field (but not in the left visual field), indicating that attention was captured automatically, at least in this visual field. However, when participants were able to predict the probe location, the attentional gains increased similarly for all the conditions (composed of visual field by picture type combinations) relative to those of Unpredictable task, with no indication of deferred deployment of attention to threatening stimuli. The results of this study suggested that the emotional valence, particularly negative valence, affected the automatic control of attention. This effect differed between the two visual fields in which emotional stimuli occurred.     

The Central Role of Group-Based Hatred as an Emotional Antecedent of Political Intolerance: Evidence from Israel

In recent years, political scientists have shifted the focus of explaining political phenomena from the purely cognitive perspective to an integrated emotion-cognition one. Yet most studies which examine antecedents of political intolerance ignore the potential role played by "gut feelings" or group-based negative emotions in endorsing those attitudes. Moreover, even the few studies that deal with emotions and intolerance concentrate exclusively on the role of groups of emotions (positive vs. negative, dispositional vs. surveillance) or on basic emotions (anger or fear) and ignore the potential influence of more complex discrete emotions like hatred on political intolerance. Hence, the main goal of this study was to create a deeper understanding regarding the role of discrete negative emotions in increasing political intolerance among different groups of individuals in different contexts. In order to do so, the relations between political intolerance and three group-based negative emotions (hatred, anger, and fear) were tested by means of four large-scale nationwide surveys. Within the surveys, various intolerance measurement methods were used in various contexts (wartime vs. no-war/routine periods) and among individuals with different levels of political sophistication. Results, obtained via multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling, show that: (1) Group-based hatred is the most important antecedent of political intolerance even when controlling for important intolerance inducers such as perceived threat. (2) Other group-based negative emotions like anger or fear influence political intolerance wholly through the mediation of hatred or perceived threat. (3) The role of group-based hatred in inducing political intolerance is more substantial in the face of heightened existential threat and among unsophisticated individuals than among sophisticated ones.     

Impact of Conflict on Mental Health in Northern Ireland: The Mediating Role of Intergroup Forgiveness and Collective Guilt

The aim of the present research was to investigate the mediating role of group-level forgiveness and guilt in the relationship between victimhood (the extent to which the conflict affected an individual's life), exposure to violence (the level of violence in their area of residence), and group identity on the one hand, and mild psychiatric morbidity on the other. Specifically the study focused on the psychological impact of the ethnopolitical conflict in Northern Ireland, utilizing people's identification with either the Catholic or Protestant community. Our results revealed that intergroup forgiveness mediated the relationship between both victimhood and group identification, as predictors, and mild psychiatric morbidity. Collective guilt, on the other hand, mediated the relationship between both exposure to violence and group identification, as predictors, and intergroup forgiveness. Overall this study shows that forgiveness and collective guilt can act as mediators in the relationship between impact of ethnopolitical conflict and mental health, at the group level, and thus demonstrates their centrality to the reconciliation process. Implications for intergroup reconciliation initiatives in Northern Ireland are discussed.     

The perils of double consciousness: The role of thought suppression in stereotype threat

The goal of the present research is to demonstrate, and then alleviate, the role of thought suppression in depressing women’s math performance under stereotype threat. We hypothesize that when taking a math test, women (but not men) attempt to suppress thoughts of the math-related gender stereotype. Suppression leads to underperformance when it uses up cognitive resources. In Study 1, women underperform on a math test and show postsuppressional rebound of the stereotype when cognitive resources are reduced. In Study 2, women suppress the stereotype after a math test begins, but show rebound when the test is complete. In Study 3, making the stereotype irrelevant to the test improves performance and reduces postsuppressional rebound. In Studies 4 and 5, we test a strategy women can use to make suppression easier, and show that it restores math performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The role of “dark personalities” (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy), Big Five personality factors, and ideology in explaining prejudice

The so-called Dark Triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) represent correlated subclinical personality traits capturing “dark personalities”. How might darker personalities contribute to prejudice? In the present study (n = 197), these dark personality variables correlated positively with outgroup threat perceptions and anti-immigrant prejudice. A proposed two-stage structural equation model, assuming indirect personality effects (Dark Personality, Big Five) on prejudice through ideology and group threat perceptions, fit the data well. Specifically, a latent Dark Personality factor predicted social dominance orientation, whereas (low) Openness to Experience predicted right-wing authoritarianism; these ideological variables each predicted prejudice directly and indirectly through heightened intergroup threat. The authors recommend that personality models of prejudice incorporate both normal-range and subclinical personality predictors, in addition to ideological and social psychological mediators.     

The “Obama Effect”: How a salient role model reduces race-based performance differences

Barack Obama, the first Black-American president, has been widely heralded as a role model for Black-Americans because he inspires hope. The current study was conducted to assess whether, beyond simply inspiring hope, this “Obama Effect” has a concrete positive influence on Black-Americans’ academic performance. Over a three-month period we administered a verbal exam to four separate groups of Black- and White-American participants at four predetermined times. When Obama’s stereotype-defying accomplishments garnered national attention - just after his convention speech, and election to the presidency - they had a profound beneficial effect on Black-Americans’ exam performance, such that the negative effects of stereotype threat were dramatically reduced. This effect occurred even when concerns about racial stereotypes continued to exist. The fact that we found performance effects with a random sample of American participants, far removed from any direct contact with Obama, attests to the powerful impact of ingroup role models.     

Group status, perceptions of threat, and support for social inequality

Members of high-status groups have been shown to favor social inequality, but little research has investigated the boundary conditions of this phenomenon. In the present article we suggest that perceived intergroup threat moderates the relationship between group status and support for social inequality (i.e., social dominance orientation), especially among highly identified group members. In Study 1, Democrats and Republicans rated their party’s relative status and were later exposed to a leading US. Presidential candidate from the opposing party (high threat) or their own party (low threat). In Study 2, university students were made to believe that their school had high or low status and were then presented with threatening or non-threatening information about a rival institution. The results of both studies supported the prediction that status only increases preferences for group-based inequality under conditions of high threat and high ingroup identification.     

The Obama effect: An experimental test

Past research on stereotype threat and role model effects, as well as a recent quasi-experiment (Marx, Ho, & Freidman, this issue) suggested the possibility of an “Obama effect” on African American’s standardized test performance, whereby the salience of Barack Obama’s stereotype defying success could positively impact performance. We tested this reasoning in a randomized experiment with a broad sample of college students from across the country. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that students prompted to think about Barack Obama prior to taking a difficult standardized verbal test would improve their performance relative to white students, and to African American students in control conditions that were not prompted to think about Obama. Our results did not support this hypothesis. Test scores were unaffected by prompts to think about Obama and no relationship was found between test performance and positive thoughts about Obama, a disconfirmation of both the findings and conclusions of the Marx, Ho, and Freidman study.