Under the veil of tolerance: A justification-suppression approach to anti-Islamic implicit bias in reaction to terrorist attacks.

Twenty years after 9/11, the impact of terrorism on social and political attitudes remains unclear. Several large-scale surveys suggest that terrorism has no discernible effects on direct, self-report measures of prejudice toward Arab-Muslims. However, direct measures may lack the sensitivity to detect subtle underlying attitudes that are considered socially unacceptable to openly express. To tap these subtle reactions, we assessed more sensitive and implicit measures of the cognitive-affective aspects of prejudice. Building on the justification-suppression model of prejudice, we hypothesized that terrorist attacks increase implicit bias toward Arab-Muslims, especially among individuals who are unable to regulate automatic hostile reactions due to personality or situational variables. Study 1, using data from Project Implicit (N = 276,311), showed that terrorist attacks increased implicit bias but not expressed prejudice toward Arab-Muslims. Study 2, using data from Google Trends, showed that terrorist attacks increased anti-Islamic searches on the internet. Four studies that collected original data (total N = 851) showed that the effects of reminders of terrorism on anti-Islamic implicit bias are moderated by individual differences in prejudice and automaticity (Studies 3-4), by the strength of implicit Muslim-terrorist associations (Study 5), and by momentary self-control depletion (Study 6). Overall, the present research indicates that despite little evidence for elevated overt expression of prejudice against Arab-Muslims following terrorist attacks, terrorist attacks increase anti-Islamic implicit bias whenever individuals are unlikely to control automatic hostile reactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

(Eye-)tracking the escape from the self: guilt proneness moderates the effect of failure on self-avoidance.

Failure increases the motivation to escape self-awareness. To date, however, the role of self-conscious emotions (shame and guilt) in triggering escape responses after failure has not been sufficiently addressed. In this pre-registered study (N = 156 undergraduates), we adapted a classic paradigm (avoidance of one's image in a mirror) to a modern eye-tracking technology to test the hypothesis that shame proneness moderates the effect of failure on self-awareness avoidance. Individual differences in guilt and shame proneness were assessed before priming thoughts of failure or success. Then, an eye-tracking paradigm was used to monitor gaze avoidance of one's screen-reflected face during a neutral, unrelated task. Unexpectedly, results showed that guilt but not shame proneness exacerbated self-avoidance after failure. The present findings challenge the dominant view that shame fosters avoidance more so than guilt.

Evaluative Threat Increases Effort Expenditure in a Cycling Exercise: An Exploratory Study.

Research shows that negative or threatening emotional stimuli can foster movement velocity and force. However, less is known about how evaluative threat may influence movement parameters in endurance exercise. Based on social self-preservation theory, the authors predicted that evaluative threat would facilitate effort expenditure in physical exercise. In an exploratory study, 27 young men completed a bogus intelligence test and received either low-intelligence-quotient feedback (evaluative threat) or no feedback (control). Next, they were asked to pedal on a stationary bicycle for 30 min at a constant cadence. After 10 min (calibration period), the cadence display was hidden. Findings show that participants under evaluative threat increased cadence more than control participants during the subsequent 20-min critical period. These findings underline the potential importance of unrelated evaluative threat on physical performance.

Suicidal Ideation in Elite Schools: A Test of the Interpersonal Theory and the Escape Theory of Suicide.

OBJECTIVE: The present study compared the ability of two contemporary theories of suicidal behavior-the interpersonal and escape theories of suicide-to predict suicidal ideation. The interpersonal theory proposes that the interaction of perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness predicts suicidal ideation. The escape theory proposes that feelings of failure predict suicidal ideation and that escape motivation mediates this relationship. The present study intended to determine which of the two theories more successfully explains suicidal ideation. METHOD: A sample of 306 students from elite schools in Morocco (193 women, Mage  = 21.21 years, predominantly Muslims) completed a questionnaire assessing feelings of failure and escape motivation, perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness, suicide ideation, and control variables. RESULTS: In line with previous research, separate tests revealed support for the two theories. Interestingly, when entered simultaneously in a multiple regression analysis, the two frameworks explained a unique and cumulative part of the variance in suicidal ideation. Moreover, the effects remained significant after controlling for past suicide attempts, depression, hopelessness, and stress. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that combining the interpersonal and escape theories of suicide could help better explain the emergence of suicidal ideation among college students.

Automatic social comparison: Cognitive load facilitates an increase in negative thought accessibility after thin ideal exposure among women.

Women are routinely exposed to images of extremely slim female bodies (the thin ideal) in advertisements, even if they do not necessarily pay much attention to these images. We hypothesized that paradoxically, it is precisely in such conditions of low attention that the impact of the social comparison with the thin ideal might be the most pronounced. To test this prediction, one hundred and seventy-three young female participants were exposed to images of the thin ideal or of women's fashion accessories. They were allocated to either a condition of high (memorizing 10 digits) or low cognitive load (memorizing 4 digits). The main dependent measure was implicit: mean recognition latency of negative words, relative to neutral words, as assessed by a lexical decision task. The results showed that thin-ideal exposure did not affect negative word accessibility under low cognitive load but that it increased it under high cognitive load. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that social comparison with the thin ideal is an automatic process, and contribute to explain why some strategies to prevent negative effects of thin-ideal exposure are inefficient.

On the power of autobiographical memories: from threat and challenge appraisals to actual behaviour.

Autobiographical memories are a major feature of mental life in humans. However, research on the influence of autobiographical recall on actual behaviour is scarce. We predicted and found that general memories of failure and specific memories of success resulted in worse performance than general memories of success and specific memories of failure. This performance pattern was mediated by task appraisal, suggesting that autobiographical memories (of failure and success) impact performance by shaping the perception of the upcoming task. Combined with the fact that these effects occurred even when the content of autobiographical memories was unrelated to the upcoming task, the present research represents an important step forward in understanding how autobiographical recall influences actual behaviour.

Single exposure to disclaimers on airbrushed thin ideal images increases negative thought accessibility.

Disclaimers on airbrushed thin ideal images can attract attention to the thin ideal standard promoted by the advertisements, which can be damaging rather than helpful. In this study, 48 female college students were exposed to a thin ideal image including a disclaimer, a neutral sentence, or nothing. Two weeks and two months after this, they were again exposed to the same image but with no accompanying text in any of the conditions. Negative thought accessibility was assessed three times, after each exposure to the thin-ideal image, using reaction time measures. Participants randomly assigned to the disclaimer condition systematically showed greater accessibility of negative thoughts than those in the other two conditions, irrespective of the time of measurement. These results suggest that disclaimers on airbrushed images may have some counter-productive effects by accentuating the problems that they precisely aim to address.

The mirror effect: self-awareness alone increases suicide thought accessibility.

According to objective self-awareness theory, when individuals are in a state of self-awareness, they tend to compare themselves to their standards. Self-to-standard comparison often yields unfavorable results and can be assimilated to a failure, activating an escape motivation. Building on recent research on the link between failure and suicide thought accessibility, the present experiment tested the hypothesis that mirror exposure alone provokes an increase in suicide thought accessibility. Participants were exposed to their mirror reflection (or not) while completing a lexical decision task with suicide-related words. Self-to-standard discrepancy salience was manipulated by asking participants to list actual and ideal traits before versus after the lexical decision task. As predicted, mirror-exposed participants recognized suicide-related words quicker than those unexposed to their mirror image. Self-to-standard discrepancy salience did not moderate this effect. Discussion focuses on the role of the motivation to escape self-awareness in the availability of suicide-related ideas.

When self-destructive thoughts flash through the mind: Failure to meet standards affects the accessibility of suicide-related thoughts.

When individuals realize that they fail to attain important standards or expectations, they may be motivated to escape the self, which could lead thoughts of suicide to become more accessible. Six studies examined this hypothesis, mainly derived from escape theory (Baumeister, 1990). The results indicated that whenever individuals realize that they fail to attain an important standard, they experience increased accessibility of suicide-related thoughts (Studies 1-6). In line with the idea that such effects reflect motivations to escape from negative self-awareness, they were especially pronounced when associated with high levels of self-consciousness and escapist motivations (Study 1) and with a large discrepancy between self and standards (Studies 2-4). Moreover, failure to attain standards increased suicide-thought accessibility along with the desire for an altered state of consciousness (Study 5). Finally, increases in suicide-thought accessibility after failure were associated with simultaneous increases in accessibility of general concepts related to escape (Study 6). Implications of these findings for escape and terror management theories are discussed.