Aim of the project
Societies undergo rapid changes in the relations between social groups, for example due to migration, shifting gender roles, globalization, crises like Covid-19, and social movements like #BLM. Heated societal debates suggest that social changes are often experienced as threatening, leading to a host of negative consequences like rigidity, polarization, and hostility towards the source of threat. This makes understanding how people cope with social change one of the major challenges of our times. However, how people regulate negative arousal stemming from societal change, and how this in turn shapes opinions, is as yet poorly understood.
In this project, we develop and test a psychophysiological threat-and-coping model of social change. Linking social, psychological, and physiological levels of analysis this project tries to explain the interplay between lower-level physiological responses, and higher-level information processing, to understand how people form opinions about social change. Moving beyond maladaptive physiological arousal (threat) we examine the possibility that change can also elicit more benign arousal (challenge) and link this to sensitivity to specific types of arguments (instrumental, moral, identity) and rigidity versus openmindedness in opinion formation.
Theoretical background
On the basis of the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat (BPS-CT) the state of threat (‘negative stress’) can be contrasted against a state of challenge (‘positive stress’). According to the model, threat and challenge occur in motivated performance situations where people evaluate the demands of the situation (required effort, uncertainty, danger) against the resources that the person brings into the situation to deal with these demands (skills, knowledge, support). When demands outweigh resources threat emerges; when resources approach or exceed demands challenge emerges. Crucially, challenge and threat states are marked by partly unique physiological response-patterns. While the challenge pattern is a benign physiological pattern, the threat pattern is a maladaptive pattern, which is related to negative health-outcomes over time.
Particularly relevant for the current model is the downstream impact of these distinct physiological states for information processing: While threat leads to more local, detailed and rigid information processing, challenge leads to more global, abstract, and open-minded information processing. Specifically, we hypothesize that threat makes people more sensitive for the instrumental aspects of
social change, whereas challenge makes people more sensitive towards the identity and morality aspects of social change.
Research design
We test our hypotheses by conducting experiments using both self-reported measures, behavioral speech tasks and psychophysiological measurements. We specifically focus on two domains of social change: immigration and organizations implementing diversity policies. Within this specific postdoc project, the aim is to bring the lab to the field. Namely, Maaike Homan develops a method to measure psychophysiological responses during real life interactions. By doing so, we reach a more diverse sample population compared to at the university. Furthermore, these field studies allow us to examine naturalistic interactions of individuals when talking about social change.
Outcomes of the postdoc project:
1. Empirical paper on the role of psychophysiological responses during conversations of social change – A field study (Lowlands Science Festival Study).
2. Methodological paper on how the study psychophysiological processes in the field.
3. Tutorial on how to use psychophysiological wearables EmbracePlus (Empatica) including a validation study.
Funding
This project is funded by NWO (Open Competition grant) and SCOOP.
Literature
De Wit, F. R. C., Scheepers, D., & Jehn, K. A. (2012). Cardiovascular reactivity and resistance to opposing viewpoints during intragroup conflict. Psychophysiology, 49, 1691–1699.
Fonseca, R., Blascovich, J., & Garcia-Marques, T. (2014). Challenge and threat motivation: Effects on superficial and elaborative information processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1170.
Kachanoff, F., Bigman, Y., Kapsaskis, K., Gray, K. (2020). Measuring realistic and symbolic threats of COVID-19 and their unique impacts on wellbeing and adherence to public health behaviors. SocialPsychological and Personality Science.
Mendes, W. B., & Park, J. (2014). Neurobiological concomitants of motivation states. In A. J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation science (pp. 233–270). Waltham, MA: Academic Press.
Scheepers, D., & Ellemers, N. (2018). Stress and the stability of social systems: An overview of neurophysiological research. European Review of Social Psychology, 29, 340-376.
Scheepers, D., & Knight, E. L. (2019). Neuroendocrine and cardiovascular responses to shifting status. Current Opinion in Psychology, 113, 115-119.
Seery, M. D. (2011). Challenge or threat? Cardiovascular indexes of resilience and vulnerability to potential stress in humans. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 1603-1610.
