Non-strategic detection of identity-threatening information: Epistemic validation and identity defense may share a common cognitive basis

Readers use prior knowledge to evaluate the validity of statements and detect false information without effort and strategic control. The present study expands this research by exploring whether people also non-strategically detect information that threatens their social identity. Participants (N = 77) completed a task in which they had to respond to a “True” or “False” probe after reading true, false, identity-threatening, or non-threatening sentences. Replicating previous studies, participants reacted more slowly to a positive probe (“True”) after reading false (vs. true) sentences. Notably, participants also reacted more slowly to a positive probe after reading identity-threatening (vs. non-threatening) sentences. These results provide first evidence that identity-threatening information, just as false information, is detected at a very early stage of information processing and lends support to the notion of a routine, non-strategic identity-defense mechanism.

Tone Probe Paradigm (the dot probe paradigm's forgotten ancestry)

This is my BSc dissertation completed at, and submitted to, UCL's Psychology Department in 1981. It reports on my attentional probe paradigm initially used by myself in the auditory modality to demonstrate attentional biases in the processing of threatening information by participants with identifiable personality characteristics. A group of researchers at St. George's (University of London), introduced to this paradigm by M. W Eysenck, applied my attentional probe paradigm in the visual modality (dot probe paradigm). This dissertation is hand-written, rather hurriedly put together, but still easy to read. The experimental work which introduced the attentional probe paradigm appears towards the end of the dissertation.

Threat impairs flexible use of a cognitive map

Goal-directed behavior requires adaptive systems that respond to environmental demands. In the absence of threat (or presence of reward), individuals are free to explore a large number of behavioral trajectories, effectively interrogating the environment across many dimensions. This leads to flexible, relational memory encoding and retrieval. In the presence of imminent danger, motivation shifts to an imperative state characterized by a narrow focus of attention on threatening information. This impairs flexible, relational memory. Here, we test how these proposed motivational shifts (Murty & Adcock, 2017) affect behavioral flexibility and memory. Participants learned the structure of a maze-like environment and navigated to the location of everyday objects in both safe and threatening contexts. The latter contained a predator that could ‘capture’ participants, leading to electric shock. After learning, the path to some objects was blocked, forcing a detour for which one route was significantly shorter. We predicted that the threatening environment would push participants toward an imperative state, leading to less efficient and less flexible navigation. Across 3 studies, we found that threat caused participants to take longer paths to goal objects and less efficient detours when obstacles were encountered. Navigation was less efficient despite no impairment in recognition memory for the maps learned in safe vs threatening contexts. These results provide ecologically valid evidence that imperative states, triggered by threat, reduce the ability to flexibly use cognitive maps to guide behavior.

Supernatural punishment beliefs as manipulated explanations of misfortune

Why do humans develop beliefs apparently well-suited to promote prosociality, such as beliefs in moralistic supernatural punishment? Leading hypotheses regard such beliefs to be group-level cultural adaptations, shaped by intergroup competition to facilitate cooperation. We present a complementary model in which cognitive mechanisms and strategic interactions produce and stabilize such beliefs. People incentivize others’ cooperation through behaviors such as punishment, moralistic narratives, and, we suggest, claims of supernatural punishment. These overcome mechanisms of epistemic vigilance by posing as explanations of misfortune and containing threatening information, as well as potentially appealing to justice intuitions and aligning with signaling incentives. Explaining religious belief requires considering both people’s motivations to invest in the production of supernatural narratives and the reasons others adopt them.

Mnemic Neglect for Behaviors Enacted by Members of One’s Nationality Group

People exhibit impaired recall for highly self-threatening information that describes them, a phenomenon called the mnemic neglect effect (MNE). We hypothesized that the MNE extends to recall for information that highly threatens an individual’s important in-group identity. We tested our hypothesis in two experiments in which participants read behaviors depicted as enacted by either in-group members (Experiment 1 = American and Experiment 2 = British) or out-group members (Andorrans). Participants recalled identity-threatening behaviors poorly when enacted by in-group members but not when enacted by out-group members. Additional results evinced in-group favoritism in (1) evaluations of the two groups and (2) trait judgments made from the behaviors, but only on traits central to the self. Finally, mediational analyses suggested that the group-driven memory differences are plausibly due to the global between-group evaluation differences but not the perceived between-group trait judgment differences.

Dispositional Traits and Susceptibility to Political Anxiety

Research within political science has found a relationship between experiencing state anxiety and an increase in information seeking. Specifically, when individuals feel anxious, they seek out threatening information relevant to the source of anxiety. But this research has generally treated exposure to anxiety-inducing information in the social environment as a given. This can be misleading because some people are more likely to experience political anxiety than others by virtue of their personal attributes. I assert that a person’s inherent anxiety level, independent of context (trait anxiety) will shape attention, processing information in one’s environment, to threatening information, which in turn makes that individual more or less likely to experience anxiety over politics. These differential experiences of political anxiety lead to variations in how people consume information. Utilizing a simulated information news board, I test this series of links and find that individual traits affect the propensity to experience political anxiety via attentional biases and this propensity influences the type of political information with which individuals engage. People high in trait anxiety show attentional biases towards anxiety-inducing content, the first study in political science to show trait anxious people show cognitive differences from people who are not trait anxious when it comes to politics. People high in trait anxiety also seek out a larger amount of threatening political information when experiencing anxiety over politics. Once individuals seek out a higher amount of threatening political information, they express more desire to engage in politics. This work highlights the importance of incorporating dispositional traits in research on emotions and politics.

INFLUENCE OF ANXIETY RELATED TO EXAMINATION STRESS ON VISUAL ATTENTION SHIFTS AND ELECTRIC ACTIVITY OF BRAIN FRONT ZONES

The attention of anxious people can be highly sensitive to environmental stimuli associated with threat. Such stimuli attract principle attention, thereby contributing to its shift. The purpose of the paper was to study the relationship between the sensorimotor characteristics of visual attention and bioelectrical brain activity in healthy young people under anxiety associated with examination stress. Materials and Methods. The authors examined 39 healthy young people (university students) when performing tasks for visual attention to emotional (threatening) information. The characteristics of alpha activity spectral power in the frontal brain lobes and sensorimotor reactions were studied. The experimental series included 2 stages: a psychometric study (assessment of anxiety levels, depression and inclination to aggression) and EEG recording of background activity with open/closed eyes when performing visual attention tasks on emotional stimuli. Results. According to the results of cognitive tasks, the trial subjects were divided into 3 groups: with a visual attention shift to threatening information, with a visual attention shift from threatening information and without any attention shift. According to psychometric studies, trial subjects showed excessive anxiety levels (HADS). Subjects with a visual attention shift to threatening information demonstrated hostile aggression, including enmity and anger (BPAQ). Conclusion. In an anxiety state associated with examination stress, the students’ visual attention may shift to/from negatively colored emotional information. Young people with a high anxiety level and an attention shift to threatening information are presumably characterized by a high hostility level. Difficulties in distracting attention from emotional (threatening) information are probably associated with a relatively higher activation level of the right frontal brain zones. Keywords: anxiety, emotional information, frontal brain zones, alpha activity, attention shift. Показано, что система внимания тревожных людей может быть высоко чувствительна к стимулам окружающей среды, связанным с угрозой и привлекающим внимание в первую очередь, что способствует смещению внимания. Цель исследования – изучение взаимосвязи между сенсомоторными характеристиками зрительного внимания и особенностями биоэлектрической активности мозга в состоянии тревожности, связанной с экзаменационным стрессом, у здоровых молодых людей. Материалы и методы. Исследовали особенности спектральной мощности альфа-диапазона ЭЭГ во фронтальных отведениях мозга и сенсомоторных реакций при выполнении заданий на зрительное внимание к эмоциональной (угрожающей) информации у 39 здоровых молодых людей (обучающихся вуза). Экспериментальная серия включала 2 этапа: психометрическое исследование (оценка уровней тревожности, депрессии и склонности к агрессии) и регистрацию ЭЭГ фоновой активности с открытыми, закрытыми глазами и при выполнении заданий на зрительное внимание к эмоциональным стимулам. Результаты. По результатам выполнения когнитивных заданий участники исследования были разделены на 3 группы: «со смещением зрительного внимания к угрожающей информации», «со смещением зрительного внимания от угрожающей информации» и «с отсутствием смещения внимания». По данным психометрических исследований испытуемые характеризовались уровнями тревожности, превышающими норму (тест HADS). Участники группы «со смещением зрительного внимания к угрожающей информации» имели такие выраженные характеристики агрессии, как враждебность и гнев (тест BPAQ). Выводы. В состоянии тревожности, связанной с экзаменационным стрессом, зрительное внимание обучающихся может сопровождаться смещением внимания к/от негативно окрашенной эмоциональной информации. Для молодых людей с высоким уровнем тревожности и смещением внимания к угрожающей информации предположительно характерно наличие высокого уровня враждебности. Трудности с отвлечением внимания от эмоциональной (угрожающей) информации, вероятно, связаны со сравнительно более высоким уровнем активации фронтальных зон мозга справа. Ключевые слова: тревожность, эмоциональная информация, фронтальные зоны мозга, активность α-диапазона ЭЭГ, смещение внимания.

At Home and Abroad: The Use of Denial-of-service Attacks during Elections in Nondemocratic Regimes

In this article, we study the political use of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, a particular form of cyberattack that disables web services by flooding them with high levels of data traffic. We argue that websites in nondemocratic regimes should be especially prone to this type of attack, particularly around political focal points such as elections. This is due to two mechanisms: governments employ DoS attacks to censor regime-threatening information, while at the same time, activists use DoS attacks as a tool to publicly undermine the government’s authority. We analyze these mechanisms by relying on measurements of DoS attacks based on large-scale Internet traffic data. Our results show that in authoritarian countries, elections indeed increase the number of DoS attacks. However, these attacks do not seem to be directed primarily against the country itself but rather against other states that serve as hosts for news websites from this country.