Responses to false physiological feedback in individuals with panic attacks and elevated anxiety sensitivity

Participants with elevated anxiety sensitivity and a history of panic attacks were compared to a low anxiety comparison group with respect to physiological and subjective reactivity to false heart-rate feedback and reactivity to a priming procedure. Whereas accurate heart-rate feedback elicited minimal responses, participants across groups showed significant physiological and subjective responses to false feedback. High risk and low risk participants did not differ in heart-rate responses to false feedback, though panic attack frequency did predict physiological and subjective reactions to false feedback in the high risk group. Self-reported nonspecific anxiety was significantly higher in high risk female participants than in low risk female participants, while males did not different in general subjective anxiety. However, high risk participants reported more panic-specific symptoms during the false feedback task than low risk participants, regardless of the sex of the participant. Therefore, although the experimental paradigm appeared to trigger nonspecific anxiety in high risk female participants, panic attack symptoms in reaction to the task were specific to risk group, not sex, and consistent with hypotheses. Surprisingly, the priming procedure did not influence physiological or subjective responses to false feedback in either group. These results raise additional questions regarding the process and impact of interoception in individuals with panic attacks, and suggest that false perception of internal changes may contribute to risk for panic disorder when exposed to believable cues.     

Flashbulb memories of the Paris attacks

Flashbulb memories are vivid autobiographical memories of the circumstances where an individual first learns about emotionally significant public events. Our paper assesses whether these memories were triggered by the attacks of Friday 13 November 2015 in Paris. Two hundred and ninety‐one participants answered a web‐based questionnaire that assessed their memory of the circumstances in which they first learned of the attacks. The questionnaire also assessed vividness, rehearsal, emotion, surprise and novelty. The results showed substantial and vivid recall of the context in which the participants first learned of the event. This recall was associated with fair rehearsal, negative emotional valence, surprise, and novelty. Regression analysis showed that the flashbulb recall was predicted by negative emotion. Negative emotion seems to play a key role in the formation of flashbulb memories, at least those associated with the Paris attacks.     

Making Meaning of the September 11 Attacks: Spanish- and Mandarin-Speaking Focus Groups

This article examines experiences and perceptions related to the September 11, 2001, attacks among members of two immigrant groups (Spanish-speaking and Mandarin-speaking) in New York City. Focus groups were conducted 1–2 years after the attacks. Qualitative analysis was conducted using ATLAS.ti. Three major themes emerged: (a) Immediate Experience of the Attacks, (b) Evolving Psychological Adjustment, and (c) Long-Term Issues of Public Concern. The groups’ discussions diverged with temporal progression across these themes, reflecting increasing congruence with broad conceptualizations of their respective cultures. The findings suggest that, over time, culture increasingly influenced the meaning these people made of the disaster.     

An Evolutionary Account of Suicide Attacks: The Kamikaze Case

Explanations for suicide attacks abound. Yet the literature remains conceptually fragmented, with different authors focusing on different attitudes, incentive structures, values, psychological processes, strategic imperatives, and cultural, historical, and personal circumstances. Curiously, however, there have been few efforts to cast suicide bombing within the extensive evolutionary literature on human altruism—in which it clearly belongs. Neither have there been more than occasional efforts to mobilize the distinction between “proximate” and “ultimate” explanations, with most proposed explanations being proximate. Here we draw on content analyses from materials written by Japanese Kamikaze pilots to propose an evolvable cognitive algorithm—by hypothesis, species typical—that (1) specifies environmental circumstances under which such “heroic” behavior is likely; (2) is consistent at the proximate level with the Japanese data; and (3) that is not inconsistent with many of the diverse proximate attitudes, values, and psychological mechanisms that dominate discussions of contemporary suicide campaigns. The evolutionary perspective is not an alternative to most of the proximate explanations offered in discussions of contemporary cases but is, rather, a paradigm around which diverse proximate explanations can be organized.     

A Functional Analysis of 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Debates

Political leaders’ debates are an important and highly visible instances of public argumentation. As such, they merit scholarly attention. This essay applies the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to analyze televised presidential debates from the Ukraine in 2004. Overall, this analysis revealed that acclaims were the most common function, followed by attacks and then defenses. Policy was addressed more often than character in these debates, as expected. The incumbent candidate acclaimed significantly more and attacked less than the challenger. The incumbents used past deeds significantly more often to acclaim – and less to attack – than the challengers. Finally, general goals and ideals were used more as the basis for acclaims than attacks in these debates. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Anger in Wikipedia: Perceived intentionality and threat appraisal as mediators of anger about man‐made attacks

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has established strict guidelines for the objectivity of content. At the same time, Wikipedia includes articles on negative events, such as disasters or man‐made attacks. These events can elicit strong emotions, which in turn may spill over into Wikipedia articles. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia articles on man‐made attacks contain more anger‐related content than Wikipedia articles on disasters. Building on these findings, we aimed to investigate whether the threat that Wikipedia authors experience when they learn of an attack is relevant as a factor in explaining the anger effect. Threat is known to elicit active and engaged reactions, such as anger, which is why it is a likely explaining factor. Our research also aimed to replicate the findings from the linguistic analysis of the Wikipedia articles using controlled scenario‐based laboratory experiments. Three studies demonstrated that man‐made attacks (terrorist attack, shooting rampage) elicited more threat, more anger, and more expressions of anger‐related content in Wikipedia texts than nature‐made disasters (earthquake, flood) and man‐made disasters (train accident). Moreover, threat was relevant as a factor in explaining the effects on anger and anger‐related content in the Wikipedia texts. These mediations could be explained by the perceived intentionality of the event. This research highlights the findings that perceived intentionality and threat are relevant mediating factors for feelings and expressions of anger after man‐made attacks.     

Cross cultural evaluation of smokers risk for panic and anxiety pathology: a test in a Russian epidemiological sample

The present study evaluated the main and interactive effects of level of smoking (cigarettes per day) and anxiety sensitivity (fear of anxiety and anxiety related sensations) in predicting panic and anxiety variables in an epidemiologically-defined sample of smokers from Moscow (n=95). The combination of high levels of anxiety sensitivity and smoking predicted agoraphobic avoidance, but not frequency of panic attacks during the past week. These findings suggest anxiety sensitivity may moderate the relation between level of smoking and prototypical panic psychopathology variables (panic attacks and agoraphobic avoidance) even after controlling for the theoretically-relevant factors of alcohol abuse and negative affect.     

The Psychology of Leadership Destabilization: An Analysis of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Debates

When contesting for political office, leaders do not only seek to build their own following but also to engage in attacks to destabilize opponent leaders. However, research has yet to explore and explain the nature of attacks that seek to destabilize a leader's influence. Building on the identity leadership model which sees leadership as flowing from a leader's capacity to promote a sense of shared identity with followers, we argue that a leader can be destabilized if followers come to see the leader as defiling, devaluing, dividing, and destroying this shared sense of “us.” To explore these ideas, we analyzed the attack rhetoric used by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the 2016 U.S. presidential debates to examine how they sought to subvert each other's leadership. Our analysis supports the proposed model and sheds light on the hitherto underexplored topic of leadership destabilization. Moreover, by helping us understand the ways in which principles of identity leadership can be weaponized to destabilize leadership, the analysis defines an important agenda for future research.     

Étude des victimes des attentats du 13 novembre 2015, pris en charge au centre du psychotrauma de l’institut de victimologie

The care of a victim is a multidisciplinary care. However, we have few data regarding the impact of these different supports on the terrorist attacks victims, especially in France. Thus, we’ve carried out a clinical survey in order to assess the psychopathological development among 27 patients regarding to their perception of the sociomedical, psychological, judicial and police support they got. An assessment has been made based on the sociodemographic and psychopathological data of the subjects we included. We made the assessments 3 and 12 months after the terrorist attack, regarding to depressive, traumatic, peritraumatic (dissociation and distress) symptoms, sleeping disorders and the perceived quality of social support. Otherwise, they answered a subjective inventory of the quality of the help, support and care they were offered after the attack. Those data confirmed that the traumatic, peritraumatic, depressive and sleeping disorders were severe after such a traumatic event. We stated the fact that the clinical development was partly positively correlated with the favourable perception of the different supports. The welcoming and support from the various actors in victimology are key features in lowering the avoidance and improving the perception of the social support, which we know are two essential criteria in the traumatism development. We propose lines of thoughts to find a proper grasp of those extreme situations, likely to affect any segment of the population.     

The effects of collective anger and fear on policy support in response to terrorist attacks

ABSTRACT

Both correlational and experimental studies examined how perceived emotional responses of the majority of Americans to 9/11 affect individuals’ support for government counter-terrorism policies (i.e., military intervention, anti-immigration, restricting civil liberties). Study 1 found associations between perceived collective emotions (i.e., anger, fear) and individuals’ own corresponding emotions and those between perceived collective anger and counter-terrorism policy support. Individuals’ own anger mediated the associations of collective anger with policy support. Using experimental manipulations, Study 2 showed that collective anger had a significant effect on individuals’ own anger and one significant and two marginal effects on counter-terrorism policy support. Individuals’ own anger mediated one of the marginal effects of collective anger on policy support. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of terrorist threat.