Original source: Association for Psychological Science
When we’re faced with things that seem threatening, whether it’s a hairy spider or an angry mob, our goal is usually to get as far away as we can. Now, new research suggests that our visual perception may actually be biased in ways that help motivate us to get out of harm’s way.

Our bodies help us respond to looming threats by engaging our fight-or-flight response and enabling us to act quickly: Our heart rate and blood pressure ramp up, and we produce more of the stress hormone cortisol. But research suggests that the body may also demonstrate its preparedness through certain perceptual biases.

In accordance with the threat-signal hypothesis, psychological scientist Emily Balcetis of New York University and colleagues reasoned that if we need to be increasingly prepared to act as a threat gets closer, then we’re best served by misperceiving objects as being closer to us the more threatening they are.

Importantly, this hypothesis suggests that we should misperceive threatening objects as closer than nonthreatening objects that evoke equally strong and negative responses, such as disgust.

The researchers tested this hypothesis in two studies reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In the first study, Balcetis and colleagues recruited 101 college students to participate in a study supposedly about attitudes toward “island life.” After entering the room, the students stood 156 inches away from a live tarantula that was placed on a tray on a table. The students reported how threatened and disgusted they felt at that moment and estimated the distance to the tarantula.

The results showed that the more threatened participants felt, the closer they estimated the tarantula to be. But a different effect emerged when considering the effect of disgust. The more disgusted they felt, the further away they estimated the tarantula to be.

To pinpoint the specific effect of threat, the researchers conducted a second study in which they experimentally manipulated participants’ experiences of threat and disgust and compared the effects to a case when they felt no emotions.

They recruited 48 female college students to participate in a study on “impressions.” When they arrived, the participants met a male student they had never seen before (the male student was actually in on the experiment).

Each participant was randomly assigned to watch one of three videos. Participants in the threat condition watched a video in which the male student talked about his love of guns, how he hunted as a hobby, and how he experienced feelings of pent-up aggression.

Participants in the disgust condition watched a video in which the same male student talked about having done disgusting things to customers’ orders while working in a fast food restaurant, including urinating in customers’ sodas and spitting in their food.

Finally, participants in the neutral condition watched a video in which the male student talked about the classes he was taking next semester in a neutral manner.

After watching the video, the participants were brought back into the room with the male student, who sat 132 inches away from them. To get a measure of their physiological arousal, the researchers recorded each participant’s heart rate immediately before the interaction. The participants rated how “threatening” and how “disgusting” they felt the male student was at that moment. They also estimated how many inches separated them from the male student.

The results showed that the female students who watched the threatening video estimated that the male student was closer (average 55.0 cm) than the students who watched either the disgusting (average 78.4 cm) or the neutral video (average 73.9 cm). This relationship held even after the participants’ heart rate was taken into account.

In both studies, feelings of threat — but not disgust — were related to participants’ estimates of distance, providing further evidence in support of the threat-signal hypothesis.

“Although fear and disgust are both negative and intense emotions, they differ in the amount of immediate action they call for,” the researchers explain. “Both fear and disgust may be associated with avoidance tendencies, but fear typically necessitates active mobilization to withdraw from or dispel potential threats, whereas disgust does not.”

This research suggests that our perception can be biased in ways that may help to promote functional action – in this case, getting away from sources of threat. But an important question remains: Does perceiving objects as physically closer actually make us quicker to act?

Addressing questions like these will help paint a clearer picture of how our experiences of emotion can guide action by shaping how we perceive the environment around us.

Co-authors on this research include Shana Cole of New York University and David Dunning of Cornell University.

Human Rights Day presents an opportunity, every year, to celebrate human rights, highlight a specific issue, and advocate for the full enjoyment of all human rights by everyone everywhere.

The date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights.

This year, the spotlight is on the rights of all people — women, youth, minorities, persons with disabilities, indigenous people, the poor and marginalized — to make their voices heard in public life and be included in political decision-making.

These human rights — the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, to peaceful assembly and association, and to take part in government (articles 19, 20 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) have been at the centre of the historic changes in the Arab world over the past two years, in which millions have taken to the streets to demand change. In other parts of the world, the “99%” made their voices heard through the global Occupy movement protesting economic, political and social inequality.
ᔥUnited Nations

Aging individuals who have mental and emotional resilience—and who do not suffer from clinical depression—report high rates of “successful aging” even in the face of worsening physical and/or cognitive functioning.

The finding from a survey of older adults published online today in the American Journal of Psychiatry upends the stereotype of old age as a uniformly unhappy experience. And—even more surprising—the older the adult the more likely he or she was to report a high degree of successful aging. In fact, older age was associated with a higher rating of successful aging, despite worsening physical and cognitive functioning.

“It was clear to us that, even in the midst of physical or cognitive decline, individuals in our study reported feeling that their well-being had improved with age,” lead author and APA President Dilip Jeste, M.D., told Psychiatric News. “This counterintuitive increase in well-being with aging persisted even after accounting for variables like income, education, and marriage.”

In the Successful Aging Evaluation (SAGE) study, Jeste and colleagues surveyed 1,006 community-dwelling adults aged 50 to 99 in San Diego County, with an oversample of people over age 80. The adults answered a 25-minute telephone interview followed by a comprehensive mail-in survey of physical, cognitive, and psychological domains, including positive psychological traits and self-rated successful aging, scaled from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest). The average self-rating of successful aging was 8.2, with older individuals in the cohort reporting higher rates of successful aging despite worsening physical and cognitive functioning. People with poor physical health but high resilience scores had self-ratings of successful aging similar to those of physically healthy people with low resilience. Likewise, people with poor physical functioning but no or minimal depression had scores for successful aging comparable to those of physically healthy people with moderate to severe depression.

Jeste said the message for clinicians is that an optimistic approach to the care of seniors may help reduce societal ageism. “There is considerable discussion in public forums about the financial drain on society due to rising costs of health care for older adults…. But, successfully aging older adults can be a great resource for younger generations,” he said. “Perfect physical health is neither necessary nor sufficient” for successful aging, Jeste said. “There is potential for enhancing successful aging by fostering resilience and treating or preventing depression.”

ᔥAmerican Psychiatric Association“Association Between Older Age and More Successful Aging: Critical Role of Resilience and Depression is here. For more information on this topic go here.