Cutting stress off at the pass: reducing vigilance and responsiveness to social threat by manipulating attention

Personality processes relating to social perception have been shown to play a significant role in the experience of stress. In 5 studies, the authors demonstrate that early stage attentional processes influence the perception of social threat and modify the human stress response. The authors first show that cortisol release in response to a stressful situation correlates with selective attention toward social threat. Second, the authors show in 2 laboratory studies that this attentional pattern, most evident among individuals with low self-esteem, can be modified with a repetitive training task. Next, in a field study, students trained to modify their attentional pattern to reduce vigilance for social threat showed lower self-reported stress related to their final exam. In a final field study with telemarketers, the attentional training task led to increased self-esteem, decreased cortisol and perceived stress responses, higher confidence, and greater work performance. Taken together, these results demonstrate the impact of antecedent-focused strategies on the late-stage consequences of social stress.     

Putting Social Psychology into Serious Games

Video or computer gaming is quickly becoming a significant part of many people's lives. We review several emerging themes in both the social psychological literature and popular culture that show the potential for a productive integration of social psychology and video gaming. In particular, we examine the growing impact of serious games and outline some social psychological principles that could be implemented in the context of games for social cognitive training.     

The impact of rewards on empathic accuracy and emotional mimicry

The notion that motivation influences empathic accuracy has been inferred from aspects of the task, the situation or the relationship between interaction partners or between groups. The present research assessed whether monetary reward influences cognitive and affective empathy. In Study 1, cognitive empathy was assessed for 42 participants who decoded briefly (33 ms) presented expressions of sadness and anger. For half the participants, correctly decoded expressions on male faces were rewarded, for the other half correctly decoded expressions on female faces were rewarded. The results showed that rewards increase empathic accuracy for both emotions equally. In Study 2, facial EMG was measured as well to assess emotional mimicry as an index of affective empathy. Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1 and found a moderation of affective empathy as indexed through facial mimicry for sadness. Thus, simple monetary rewards affect both cognitive and affective empathy.