Constructing and contesting threat: Representations of white British Muslims across British national and Muslim newspapers

White British Muslims pose a challenge to racialised representations of British Muslims as non‐white, foreign and Other. By drawing on tools from Critical Discourse Analysis to develop Social Representations Theory on a micro‐analytic level, and making connections with other relevant social psychological theories on intergroup relations, this article examines the constructions of white British Muslims as a threat in six national and two Muslim British newspapers. It looks at how discourses are used to create, perpetuate and challenge the ‘hegemonisation’ of social representations in majority and minority press. The findings show that white British Muslims are portrayed as a threat not just despite of, but because of, their position as part of the ‘white British’ ingroup. Consequently, the threat they pose often leads to their Muslimness being emphasised. This was, at times, contested, however, either through direct challenges, or by making the threat ambivalent by drawing on their whiteness.     

Collective Trauma From the Lab to the Real World: The Effects of the Holocaust on Contemporary Israeli Political Cognitions

This research tested whether chronic or contextually activated Holocaust exposure is associated with more extreme political attitudes among Israeli Jews. Study 1 (N = 57), and Study 2 (N = 61) found that Holocaust primes increased support for aggressive policies against a current adversary and decreased support for political compromise via an amplified sense of identification with Zionist ideology. These effects, however, were obtained only under an exclusive but not an inclusive framing of the Holocaust. Study 3 (N = 152) replicated these findings in a field study conducted around Holocaust Remembrance Day and showed that the link between Holocaust exposure, ideological identification, and militancy also occurs in real‐life settings. Study 4 (N = 867) demonstrated in a nationally representative survey that Holocaust survivors and their descendants exhibited amplified existential threat responses to contemporary political violence, which were associated with militancy and opposition to peaceful compromises. Together, these studies illustrate the Holocaustization of Israeli political cognitions 70 years later.     

Support for Anti‐Muslim Policies: The Role of Political Traits and Threat Perception

We explored how political beliefs and attitudes predict support for anti‐Muslim policies and extremist behavior in the United States following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. A large sample completed measures of authoritarianism, social dominance orientation (SDO), generalized prejudice, identification with all humanity (IWAH), perceptions of Muslim threat, and support for anti‐Muslim policies and behaviors. These measures accounted for 73% of the variance in moderate anti‐Muslim policies and 55% of the variance in extreme anti‐Muslim policies. Authoritarianism and SDO directly and indirectly predicted support for anti‐Muslim policies, with their effects partially mediated by generalized prejudice, IWAH, and perceptions of Muslims as threatening. Threat both mediated and moderated the relationship between authoritarianism and anti‐Muslim policies. A negative interaction between authoritarianism and perceptions of Muslims as threatening predicted moderate anti‐Muslim policies, but a positive interaction predicted extreme anti‐Muslim policies. A tentative explanation is offered. Perceptions of Muslim threat was consistently a powerful predictor of anti‐Muslim policies and willingness to engage in extremist behaviors targeting Muslims. Programs to combat anti‐Muslim prejudice should consider the role of threat‐related stereotypes in expressions of anti‐Muslim prejudice.     

The role of ingroup threat and conservative ideologies on prejudice against immigrants in two samples of Italian adults

This research investigated the relationship among perception of ingroup threats (realistic and symbolic), conservative ideologies (social dominance orientation [SDO] and right-wing authoritarianism [RWA]), and prejudice against immigrants. Data were collected with a cross-sectional design in two samples: non-student Italian adults (n = 223) and healthcare professionals (n = 679). Results were similar in both samples and indicated that symbolic and realistic threats, as well as SDO and RWA, positively and significantly predicted anti-immigrant prejudice. Moreover, the model considering SDO and RWA as mediators of threats’ effects on prejudice showed a better fit than the model in which ingroup threats mediated the effects of SDO and RWA on prejudice against immigrants. Accordingly, SDO and RWA partially mediated the effect of both symbolic and realistic threats, which maintained a significant effect on prejudice against immigrants, however.     

Differential impact of emotional task relevance on three indices of prioritised processing for fearful and angry facial expressions

It is commonly assumed that threatening expressions are perceptually prioritised, possessing the ability to automatically capture and hold attention. Recent evidence suggests that this prioritisation depends on the task relevance of emotion in the case of attention holding and for fearful expressions. Using a hybrid attentional blink (AB) and repetition blindness (RB) paradigm we investigated whether task relevance also impacts on prioritisation through attention capture and perceptual salience, and if these effects generalise to angry expressions. Participants judged either the emotion (relevant condition) or gender (irrelevant condition) of two target facial stimuli (fearful, angry or neutral) imbedded in a stream of distractors. Attention holding and capturing was operationalised as modulation of AB deficits by first target (T1) and second target (T2) expression. Perceptual salience was operationalised as RB modulation. When emotion was task-relevant (Experiment 1; N?=?29) fearful expressions captured and held attention, and were more perceptually salient than neutral expressions. Angry expressions captured attention, but were less perceptually salient and capable of holding attention than fearful and neutral expressions. When emotion was task-irrelevant (Experiment 2; N?=?30), only fearful attention capture and perceptual salience effects remained significant. Our findings highlight the importance for threat-prioritisation research to heed both the type of threat and prioritisation investigated.     

认知判断中手部动作模拟的fMRI研究

该研究采用功能磁共振成像技术,考察不同条件下进行工具认知判断时手部姿势对认知判断的影响及动作模拟的神经机制。实验发现：手部姿势存在显著的主效应,冲突手部姿势条件下反应时最慢,且冲突手部姿势条件下与不冲突手部姿势条件下、自然状态条件下反应时存在显著差异,自然状态条件与不冲突手部姿势条件下反应时不存在显著差异。另外,f MRI成像结果发现,额中回、额下回、顶下小叶以及辅助运动区在自然状态下有显著激活,表明个体在进行认知判断过程中有动作模拟过程;海马结构、扣带回及楔前叶等与记忆有关的脑区有显著激活,表明身体经验在认知过程的作用。总的研究表明,不同的手部姿势状态对认知判断有不同影响,冲突手部姿势会对动作模拟产生干扰作用,手部动作模拟的神经机制主要涉及镜像神经元区,且在认知判断时存在具身效应。     

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.     

儿童的性别刻板印象威胁及其干预

刻板印象威胁即令污名群体的成员在消极刻板印象领域中表现下降的一种现象, 考察儿童性别刻板印象威胁能为从源头干预性别刻板印象威胁提供可能。基于此, 从儿童性别刻板印象威胁的产生(产生条件和产生时间)、操纵、影响(对女孩的影响和对男孩的影响)及干预(多重身份、沙文主义、积极榜样和反刻板印象)进行论述。未来研究可以从地域文化、研究对象、干预措施和研究领域等方面继续拓展。     

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.     

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.