Emotion Guided Threat Detection: Expecting Guns Where There Are None

Five experiments examine whether the ability of emotions to influence judgments of threat extends to a very basic process inherent in threat detection: object recognition. Participants experiencing different emotions were asked to make rapid judgments about whether target individuals were holding gu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 2010-10, Vol.99 (4), p.595-610
Main Authors: BAUMANN, Jolie, DESTENO, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affectivity. Emotion
Anger
Behavioural psychology
Bias
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive Bias
Dangerous Behavior
Detection
Emotions
Expectations
Experimental psychology
Female
Firearms
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Guns
Happiness
Human
Humans
Judgment
Judgments
Male
Object Recognition
Perception
Personality. Affectivity
Psychological effects
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Signal Detection, Psychological
Social Perception
Social Psychology
Threat
Threats
United States
Violence
Weapons
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Summary:Five experiments examine whether the ability of emotions to influence judgments of threat extends to a very basic process inherent in threat detection: object recognition. Participants experiencing different emotions were asked to make rapid judgments about whether target individuals were holding guns or neutral objects. Results across 4 experiments supported the hypothesis that anger increases the probability that neutral objects will be misidentified as ones related to violence, but not the converse. Of import, the findings demonstrate that this bias is not a simple function of the negative valence of an emotional state, but stems from specific threat-relevant cues provided by anger. Direct manipulation of participants' expectancies for encountering guns in the environment is shown not only to remove the bias among angry individuals when set to be low but also to produce a corresponding bias among neutral participants when set to be high. A 5th study demonstrates that the bias is amenable to correction given sufficient ability.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/a0020665