Follow-up of victims of one terrorist attack in Israel: ASD, PTSD and the perceived threat of Iraqi missile attacks

The first aim of the study was to examine the relationships between acute stress reactions and post-traumatic reactions following exposure to a terrorist attack. The second was to examine whether exposure to a terrorist attack increases the perceived threat and fear of renewed Iraqi missile attacks. Data were collected at two points in time: during the first month after the exposure to a terrorist attack (N = 54), and four months later (N = 44). Twenty-four percent of the exposed group had acute stress disorder (ASD), and a similar percentage had PTSD. Among participants who had ASD, the chances of developing PTSD were three times greater than among those who had never experienced ASD. Among participants who had been exposed to a terrorist attack and developed PTSD, the perceived threat of an Iraqi missile attack was greater than among those who had been exposed to a terrorist attack but did not develop PTSD, or among the participants in the control group. The discussion deals with the findings in light of the current controversy regarding ASD and the current situation in Israel.     

刻板印象威胁来源对防御反应的影响

以多重威胁框架为理论基础,探讨了刻板印象威胁来源对防御反应的影响。实验一和实验二选取了性别-数学刻板印象威胁,分别考察了自我概念威胁和群体概念威胁对女性防御反应的影响。结果发现,不管是自我概念威胁还是群体概念威胁,女性尝试数学题目数量都显著小于语文题目数量,表明产生了领域回避。两项研究共同说明,以自我为刻板印象威胁来源对防御反应产生影响。     

Gruesomeness conveys formidability: Perpetrators of gratuitously grisly acts are conceptualized as larger,stronger, and more likely to win

While associated with extreme terrorist organizations in modern times, extensive accounts of grisly acts of violence exist in the archeological, historical, and ethnographic records. Though reasons for this dramatic form of violence are multifaceted and diverse, one possibility is that violence beyond what is required to win a conflict is a method by which violent actors communicate to others that they are formidable opponents. The formidability representation hypothesis predicts that formidability is cognitively represented using the dimensions of envisioned bodily size and strength. We tested the informational ramifications of gruesome acts using two vignette studies depicting individuals who either did or did not grievously damage the corpse of a deceased foe. Participants rated the individual's height, bodily size, and strength, as well as his aggressiveness, motivation, and the capacity to vanquish opponents in future conflicts. Results indicate that, as predicted, committing gruesome acts of violence enhances perceptions of formidability as measured both by envisioned bodily size and strength and expectations regarding the outcomes of agonistic conflicts. Moreover, the gruesome actor was perceived as more aggressive and more motivated to overcome his enemies, and this mediated the increase in conceptualized size and strength. These results both provide further evidence for the formidability representation hypothesis and support the thesis that overtly grisly violence is tactically employed, in part, because it conveys information about the perpetrator's formidability.     

The influence of an emotional processing strategy on visual threat detection by police trainees and officers

Threat detection is an important skill for police officers, but few studies have examined the impact of processing strategies on this ability. The first aim of our study was to compare the visual detection of threatening and neutral targets in 38 police trainees and 53 police officers. The other aims were to examine the effect of emotional or semantic strategies on this process and the effect of psychopathological symptoms. In a visual search task, participants had to detect a threatening or neutral target among neutral distractors. Participants answered a question used to induce a more emotional or semantic processing strategy. Results revealed that threatening targets were detected faster than neutral ones. This effect was enhanced with an emotional processing strategy but unaffected by symptoms. Processing strategy also had led to faster reaction time overall. This study shows that inducing processing strategies can influence threat detection in police trainees and officers.     

Candidate Evaluations Through the Lens of Adaptive Followership Psychology: How and Why Voters Prefer Leaders Based on Character Traits

An extensive literature in political science shows how citizens' evaluations of politicians—as well as their electoral behavior—are affected by trait impressions of these politicians. However, deeper, interdisciplinary theory building that seeks to address when and for whom specific trait impressions come to guide candidate evaluations remains absent. In this article, I outline the theory of adaptive followership that seeks to address this shortcoming. Grounded in evolutionary psychology, I argue that leadership evolved as a solution to problems of intragroup coordination in ancestral small-scale societies. In order to understand the traits that drive followers' and voters' evaluations of leaders and politicians, one should therefore focus on problems related to group coordination and ask how these problems might regulate followers' prioritizations of various traits in leaders. On this basis, I outline an analytical framework consisting of three predictions that simultaneously formulate how (1) contexts and (2) individual differences of relevance to a given group-coordination problem regulate trait preferences, and (3) how such preferences differ between leaders and nonleaders (i.e., other social categories). The analytical framework is applied for structuring two reviews (including new empirical studies) of the ways through which intergroup conflict and disease threat, respectively, affect followers' trait preferences in leaders. Finally, directions and suggestions for future research on trait-based candidates and leader evaluations are discussed.     

Positive and Negative Peace as Predictors of Pandemic Preparedness: Evidence from a Micro- and Macro-Level Investigation During the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated unprecedented human loss and financial difficulties worldwide. In line with recent calls for social sciences to help collective efforts to address COVID-19, we investigated the link between peace and pandemic preparedness, advancing the literatures on negative (i.e., absence of direct violence) and positive peace (i.e., absence of structural violence and presence of equality) and governments' crisis preparedness as well as crisis relief efforts. Two studies tested whether both positive and negative peace predict pandemic preparedness, operationalized as COVID-19 tests, cases, and positivity rates, during the onset of the pandemic. Study 1 did so at the national level across 155 countries; Study 2 did so at a local level, across 3144 counties within the United States. Even after controlling for population size, population density, GDP, and amount of air travel, higher levels of both negative and positive peace predicted a greater number of COVID-19 tests per one million people, fewer overall COVID-19 cases, and a lower positivity rate. These findings point to the possibility that by promoting peace, governments and the international community could potentially become better prepared to handle future pandemics and other crises.     

竞赛压力、注意控制与运动表现关系的理论演进

竞赛压力及其引发的紧张焦虑对运动员的竞技状态有重要影响。注意控制理论(attentional control theory, ACT)从注意控制角度解释焦虑如何影响操作表现。阐述了ACT的历史演变过程和基本假设, 梳理了ACT在运动领域的适用性检验和基于ACT的拓展研究, 引出了ACT的发展理论——运动注意控制理论, 进而分析了其与挑战-威胁生物心理社会模型和自我控制力量模型的整合链接点, 提出了“压力-资源-注意控制整合模型”, 以更好地理解竞赛压力、注意控制与运动表现之间的关系。     

医患冲突中医生特质信息与负性情绪反馈的作用：以失望和愤怒为例

他人失望反馈和他人愤怒反馈在人际冲突解决中起着重要作用。这一情绪的人际效应在医患冲突中是否同样成立,医生的特质对这一人际效应有何影响。为此,通过两个计算机情景模拟实验,采用“最后通牒博弈”范式,分别考察了他人失望反馈与他人愤怒反馈以及医生的温情与能力特质对于医患冲突中个体威胁评价及其冲突行为的影响。结果发现：（1）医生能力高时患者对情境的威胁评价比能力低时更高,但在有医生失望反馈中医生能力高时患者对情境的威胁评价比能力低时更低。高温情的医生愤怒时患者的威胁评价比温情低时更高。（2）医生能力高时患者的出价比能力低时更高,冲突行为更少。（3）医生温情高时患者的出价比温情低时更高,冲突行为更少。（4）在温情高能力低时,有医生愤怒反馈时患者的出价相比无情绪反馈时更低。说明了医生需谨慎表达自己的情绪。相较而言,医生的能力和温情的培养更为重要。     

Blaming a Few Bad Apples to Save a Threatened Barrel: The System‐Justifying Function of Conspiracy Theories

This research demonstrates that conspiracy theories—often represented as subversive alternatives to establishment narratives—may bolster, rather than undermine, support for the social status quo when its legitimacy is under threat. A pilot study (N = 98) found a positive relationship between conspiracy belief and satisfaction with the status quo. In Study 1 (N = 120), threatening (vs. affirming) the status quo in British society caused participants to endorse conspiracy theories. In Study 2 (N = 159), exposure to conspiracy theories increased satisfaction with the British social system after this had been experimentally threatened. In Study 3 (N = 109), this effect was mediated by the tendency for participants exposed (vs. not exposed) to conspiracy theories to attribute societal problems relatively more strongly to small groups of people rather than systemic causes. By blaming tragedies, disasters, and social problems on the actions of a malign few, conspiracy theories can divert attention from the inherent limitations of social systems.     

Do individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty affect health monitoring?

Researchers have postulated that individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty (IU) may affect people's health behaviours. Study 1 (N?=?147 university students) supports this proposition showing that higher IU is associated with higher monitoring (seeking threat-relevant information). Study 2 (N?=?117 university students) experimentally manipulated IU to ensure that the association is not due to other related constructs such as anxiety or worry. Results show that inducing high IU led to increased monitoring as reflected by higher scores on an index of monitoring measures. Wanting information about the health threat in order to reduce their uncertainty was an independent predictor of monitoring and did not mediate the relationship between IU and monitoring. Findings suggest that high IU induces people to increase their monitoring; an adaptive strategy when the health threat can be reduced through this behaviour.