Implicit Threat Research Articles

Contribution of TyrB26 to the Function and Stability of Insulin: STRUCTURE-ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS AT A CONSERVED HORMONE-RECEPTOR INTERFACE

Crystallographic studies of insulin bound to receptor domains have defined the primary hormone-receptor interface. We investigated the role of Tyr(B26), a conserved aromatic residue at this interface. To probe the evolutionary basis for such conservation, we constructed 18 variants at B26. Surprisingly, non-aromatic polar or charged side chains (such as Glu, Ser, or ornithine (Orn)) conferred high activity, whereas the weakest-binding analogs contained Val, Ile, and Leu substitutions. Modeling of variant complexes suggested that the B26 side chains pack within a shallow depression at the solvent-exposed periphery of the interface. This interface would disfavor large aliphatic side chains. The analogs with highest activity exhibited reduced thermodynamic stability and heightened susceptibility to fibrillation. Perturbed self-assembly was also demonstrated in studies of the charged variants (Orn and Glu); indeed, the Glu(B26) analog exhibited aberrant aggregation in either the presence or absence of zinc ions. Thus, although Tyr(B26) is part of insulin's receptor-binding surface, our results suggest that its conservation has been enjoined by the aromatic ring's contributions to native stability and self-assembly. We envisage that such classical structural relationships reflect the implicit threat of toxic misfolding (rather than hormonal function at the receptor level) as a general evolutionary determinant of extant protein sequences.

Driving experience moderates the effect of implicit versus explicit threat priming on hazard perception test

Due to the controversial evidence regarding the efficacy of threat campaigns on driving behavior, we addressed the effects of explicit vs. implicit threats. As in other areas of advertisements, we hypothesized that an implicit threat would be more effective, i.e., generate more anxiety than an explicit threat. Furthermore, we hypothesized that such effects would be moderated by driving experience: more experienced drivers when threatened will rely on driving skills and perform in a less cautious manner vs. less experienced drivers who have not yet acquired these skills, and therefore will tend to calm their fear by exercising more caution. Driving behavior in this experimental design was addressed by the Hazard Perception (HP) task. Results were as expected. Anxiety was higher under implicit vs. explicit threat. HP scores however were overall the same for both groups. Implicit priming generated less-cautious behavior in high-experienced drivers while generating more caution for less-experienced drivers. Demonstrating in a single experiment all three driving patterns following threat, namely, no change in driving behavior (whole sample), more cautious driving behavior (less-experience) and less cautious behavior (more-experience), potentially comprises an important step in resolving the aforementioned disparity concerning effects of threat campaigns on driving behavior.

Intact implicit processing of facial threat cues in schizophrenia

An emerging body of research suggests that people with schizophrenia retain the ability to implicitly perceive facial affect, despite well-documented difficulty explicitly identifying emotional expressions. It remains unclear, however, whether such functional implicit processing extends beyond emotion to other socially relevant facial cues. Here, we constructed two novel versions of the Affect Misattribution Procedure, a paradigm in which affective responses to primes are projected onto neutral targets. The first version included three face primes previously validated to elicit varying inferences of threat from healthy individuals via emotion-independent structural modification (e.g., nose and eye size). The second version included the threat-relevant emotional primes of angry, neutral, and happy faces. Data from 126 participants with schizophrenia and 84 healthy controls revealed that although performing more poorly on an assessment of explicit emotion recognition, patients showed normative implicit threat processing for both non-emotional and emotional facial cues. Collectively, these results support recent hypotheses postulating that the initial perception of salient facial information remains intact in schizophrenia, but that deficits arise at subsequent stages of contextual integration and appraisal. Such a breakdown in the stream of face processing has important implications for mechanistic models of social cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and treatment strategies aiming to improve functional outcome.

Amygdala response predicts trajectory of symptom reduction during Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy among adolescent girls with PTSD

Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is the gold standard treatment for pediatric PTSD. Nonetheless, clinical outcomes in TF-CBT are highly variable, indicating a need to identify reliable predictors that allow forecasting treatment response. Here, we test the hypothesis that functional neuroimaging correlates of emotion processing predict PTSD symptom reduction during Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) among adolescent girls with PTSD. Thirty-four adolescent girls with PTSD related to physical or sexual assault were enrolled in TF-CBT, delivered in an approximately 12 session format, in an open trial. Prior to treatment, they were engaged in an implicit threat processing task during 3T fMRI, during which they viewed faces depicting fearful or neutral expressions. Among adolescent girls completing TF-CBT (n = 23), slopes of PTSD symptom trajectories during TF-CBT were significantly related to pre-treatment degree of bilateral amygdala activation while viewing fearful vs neutral images. Adolescents with less symptom reduction were characterized by greater amygdala activation to both threat and neutral images (i.e., less threat-safety discrimination), whereas adolescents with greater symptom reduction were characterized by amygdala activation only to threat images. These clinical outcome relationships with pre-treatment bilateral amygdala activation remained when controlling for possible confounding demographic or clinical variables (e.g., concurrent psychotropic medication, comorbid diagnoses). While limited by a lack of a control group, these preliminary results suggest that pre-treatment amygdala reactivity to fear stimuli, a component of neurocircuitry models of PTSD, positively predicts symptom reduction during TF-CBT among assaulted adolescent girls, providing support for an objective measure for forecasting treatment response in this vulnerable population.

Threat affects risk preferences in movement decision making.

Emotional states such as sadness, anger, and threat have been shown to play a critical role in decision-making processes. Here we addressed the question of whether risk preferences are influenced by postural threat and whether this influence generalizes across motor tasks. We examined risk attitudes in the context of arm-reaching (ARM) and whole-body (WB) leaning movements, expecting that increased postural threat would lead to proportionally similar changes in risk-sensitivity for each motor task. Healthy young adults were shown a series of two-alternative forced-choice lotteries, where they were asked to choose between a riskier lottery and a safer lottery on each trial. Our lotteries consisted of different monetary rewards and target sizes. Subjects performed each choice task at ground level and atop an elevated platform. In the presence of this postural threat, increased physiological arousal was correlated with decreased movement variability. To determine risk-sensitivity, we quantified the frequency with which a subject chose the riskier lottery and fit lottery responses to a choice model based on cumulative prospect theory (CPT). Subjects exhibited idiosyncratic changes in risk-sensitivity between motor tasks and between elevations. However, we found that overweighting of small probabilities increased with postural threat in the WB task, indicating a more cautious, risk-averse strategy is ascribed to the possibility of a fall. Subjects were also more risk-seeking in the WB movements than in ARM at low elevation; this behavior does not seem to derive from consistent distortions in utility or probability representations but may be explained by subjects' inaccurate estimation of their own motor variability. Overall, our findings suggest that implicit threat can modify risk attitudes in the motor domain, and the threat may induce risk-aversion in salient movement tasks.

Stereotype threat and the cognitive performance of adolescent immigrants: The role of cultural identity strength

In many world regions students with certain immigrant backgrounds underperform in educational settings. Theory and research suggest that this achievement gap could be partially explained by stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is a detrimental psychological state that inhibits individuals who belong to a negatively stereotyped group at times of learning and performance. The aim of this work was to examine both the influence of students' residence culture identity strength and ethnic identity strength on their cognitive performance under threat. Two experimental studies, conducted in European secondary schools, are reported. Experiment 1 (N = 132) showed that in a situation of explicit stereotype threat, high identification of immigrants with their residence culture predicted better cognitive performance, independently of ethnic identity strength. Residence culture identity strength was unrelated to cognitive performance in a control condition or a more implicit threat condition. Experiment 2 (N = 152) included an experimental manipulation of residence culture identity strength. The results show that highlighting similarities with the residence culture (vs. highlighting differences) positively influences immigrant students' performance under threat. This research connects the stereotype threat framework with acculturation research, and points at ways to increase the educational achievement of immigrant students.

Роль государства в политической социализации граждан современной России

In today’s globalizing world tolerance becomes a basic value in the development of a personality and modeling of his / her consciousness. This article is devoted to the study of an ethnic tolerance level of students on the example of Altai State University (ASU). The key priority of the development strategy of ASU is its integration into the educational environment of Asian nations. Many contacts with foreign and regional universities have been rapidly growing in recent years, international exchange programs being an integral part of them. The authors show a high level of ethnic tolerance in an academic environment as the result of their research, which is based on the public opinion poll of students at ASU and uses a technique for measuring the index of tolerance. The results also indicate a certain degree of readiness of young people for cultural and interethnic communication in the educational space. More than that, the research pays special attention to the factors that contribute to the formation of ethnic tolerance. However, the authors reveal a contradiction in the value systems of a certain part of student population, i.e. some respondents found many questions devoted to their attitudes to other national and ethnic groups difficult to answer or prefered to choose a “neutral” answer. Such reaction poses an implicit threat, because these responses indicate low significance of tolerance in the value set of the respondents. As the student population attitudes are characterized by ambivalence, it is necessary to aim ethnic and cultural policy at increasing the level of ethnic tolerance in the university environment.DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2015)2.1-43

The Gendered Conference Campaign: A Critique

The Gendered Conference Campaign seeks to reduce the prevalence of conferences at which the keynote speakers are all male. Such conferences, according to proponents of the campaign, stereotype philosophy as male, contribute to implicit bias against women and perpetuate stereotype threat. I argue, first, that if a more diverse list of keynote speakers were the correct way to counter harms such as implicit bias and stereotype threat, then a Gendered Conference Campaign would not be the solution. The campaign would need to include other groups that are the victims of implicit bias and stereotype within philosophy. Other challenges to proponents of the Gendered Conference Campaign are then presented.

Participating Insurance Contracts and the Rothschild-Stiglitz Equilibrium Puzzle

We extend the Rothschild-Stiglitz (RS) insurance market model with adverse selection by allowing insurers to offer either non-participating or participating policies, that is, insurance contracts with policy dividends or supplementary calls for premium. It is shown that an equilibrium always exists in such a setting. Participating policies act as an implicit threat that dissuades deviant insurers who aim to attract low-risk individuals only. The model predicts that the mutual corporate form should be prevalent in insurance markets where second-best Pareto efficiency requires cross-subsidisation between risk types.

NML v Argentina in an English legal setting

In Santa Anna and his Black Eagle,1 Benjamin Chabot and Mitu Gulati have done a great service in seeking to understand the historical origin of the pari passu clause in the circumstances of Mexican defaults in the nineteenth century. This article will doubtless continue to be cited by legal historians seeking to understand the background against which the clause first appeared and the purpose that the language had in the decree governing the Black Eagle bond. It is also a salutary reminder of the importance of inter-creditor equality in sovereign bonds since their inception. However, it is respectfully submitted, that it is of limited relevance to an English court considering a sovereign bond issued in modern times as the historical circumstances are far removed from the present. In particular, the implicit threat of extrajudicial enforcement that formed the backdrop to the decree is a thing of the...

Neural processing correlates of assaultive violence exposure and PTSD symptoms during implicit threat processing: A network-level analysis among adolescent girls

Assaultive violence exposure during childhood is a significant risk factor for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The purpose of the present study was to characterize the relationships of assault and PTSD severity with the organization of large-scale networks identified during emotion processing. Adolescent girls aged 12–16 with (N=15) and without (N=15) histories of assault underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while engaged in a task that presented images of fearful or neutral facial expressions. Independent component analysis (ICA) identified a frontocingulate network, a frontoparietal network, and a default mode network. Assault exposure was associated with significantly greater activation of the frontocingulate network for fear versus neutral faces. Within the frontocingulate network, Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity was associated with weakened functional connectivity between the left amygdala and the perigenual anterior cingulate. Within the frontoparietal network, assaulted girls demonstrated weakened connectivity of the premotor cortex with the right middle frontal gyrus. Within the default mode network, assault exposure and PTSD severity were associated with strengthening functional connectivity of the parahippocampus with the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex, respectively. Individual differences in functional connections within the frontocingulate network and frontoparietal network among the assaulted group were strongly associated with caregiver-rated family disengagement. These results demonstrate associations between assault and PTSD symptoms with the functional organization of large-scale frontoparietal, frontocingulate, and default mode networks during emotion processing. The relationship with caregiver-rated family disengagement suggests the impact of family support on the neural processing correlates of assault and PTSD symptoms.

Endogenous institutions and political extremism

The election of extreme political leaders is often associated with changes in political institutions. This paper studies these phenomena through a model in which the median voter elects a leader anticipating that he will impose institutional constraints—such as constitutional amendments, judicial appointments, or the implicit threat of a coup—that influence the behavior of future political challengers. It is typically optimal for the median voter to elect an extreme incumbent when democracy is less fully consolidated, when the costs of imposing institutional constraints are intermediate, and when the distribution of potential challengers is asymmetric. The median voter typically elects a more right-wing incumbent when the distribution of potential challengers shifts to the left. Implications of the model for the consolidation of democracy and institutional constraints are discussed, as are several related mechanisms through which politiciansʼ ability to affect institutions may lead voters to optimally elect extremists.

Implicit Threat Vigilance Among Violent Offenders Diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder: The Impact of Ostracism and Control Threat

present study investigated the role of control as a moderator in reaction to ostracism among male violent offenders diagnosed with ASPD (N = 33) compared to a control sample consisting of males from the normal population without a known history of violence, or diagnosis of ASPD, matched for age and educational level (N = 35). Participants played an altered version of the Cyberball game in which they could control the course of the game or not. The authors predicted and found that having control prior to ostracism would mitigate the effect of ostracism on implicit threat vigilance among violent offenders diagnosed with ASPD, but not among normal individuals. The results suggest that control needs are crucial in the typology of ASPD.

Predictive validity of explicit and implicit threat overestimation in contamination fear

We examined the predictive validity of explicit and implicit measures of threat overestimation in relation to contamination-fear outcomes using structural equation modeling. Undergraduate students high in contamination fear (N=56) completed explicit measures of contamination threat likelihood and severity, as well as looming vulnerability cognitions, in addition to an implicit measure of danger associations with potential contaminants. Participants also completed measures of contamination-fear symptoms, as well as subjective distress and avoidance during a behavioral avoidance task, and state looming vulnerability cognitions during an exposure task. The latent explicit (but not implicit) threat overestimation variable was a significant and unique predictor of contamination fear symptoms and self-reported affective and cognitive facets of contamination fear. On the contrary, the implicit (but not explicit) latent measure predicted behavioral avoidance (at the level of a trend). Results are discussed in terms of differential predictive validity of implicit versus explicit markers of threat processing and multiple fear response systems.

Ivory Coast: Victor’s Justice

Ivory Coast: Victor’s Justice

Psychopaths lack the automatic avoidance of social threat: Relation to instrumental aggression

Psychopathy (PP) is associated with marked abnormalities in social emotional behaviour, such as high instrumental aggression (IA). A crucial but largely ignored question is whether automatic social approach-avoidance tendencies may underlie this condition. We tested whether offenders with PP show lack of automatic avoidance tendencies, usually activated when (healthy) individuals are confronted with social threat stimuli (angry faces). We applied a computerized approach-avoidance task (AAT), where participants pushed or pulled pictures of emotional faces using a joystick, upon which the faces decreased or increased in size, respectively. Furthermore, participants completed an emotion recognition task which was used to control for differences in recognition of facial emotions. In contrast to healthy controls (HC), PP patients showed total absence of avoidance tendencies towards angry faces. Interestingly, those responses were related to levels of instrumental aggression and the (in)ability to experience personal distress (PD). These findings suggest that social performance in psychopaths is disturbed on a basic level of automatic action tendencies. The lack of implicit threat avoidance tendencies may underlie their aggressive behaviour.

Norms, Repeated Games, and the Role of Law

In drawing on the theory of repeated games, norms scholars have devoted much attention to the so-called “third-party enforcement problem:” the seemingly inevitable reluctance of members of a community to carry out their implicit threat to punish deviators. We argue that the third-party enforcement problem—as currently represented in the literature—is illusory. To be sure, third party enforcement is always a problem for “titfor-tat,” the norms literature’s canonical example of a cooperation-sustaining strategy. The problem is not, however, endemic to strategies that support cooperation. Thus, we propose re-focusing on an alternative strategy, which we call “def-for-dev” (“defect-for-deviate”). Under def-for-dev third parties find it in their interest to punish deviators lest they themselves be labeled as deviators in future rounds. Although the third-party enforcement problem as conceived of in the literature is illusory, there is still reason for skepticism about the application of mainstream repeated game theory to law and norms. We highlight the “counterfactual problem:” the fact that the theory of games requires that players continue to believe that other players have adopted a particular equilibrium strategy even “off the equilibrium path,” when it is evident that this belief is false. The counterfactual problem opens up avenues for law that the literature has not yet identified. We contend, for example, that law does not enter simply to help players arrive at the cooperative equilibrium, but is required to sustain that equilibrium. This observation has the virtue of consistency with actual patterns of law enforcement. * Brokaw Professor of Corporate Law, Albert C. BeVier Research Professor, University of Virginia School of Law, pgm9h@virginia.edu. ** Associate Professor, University of Virginia School of Law, csanchirico@law.virginia.edu.

Nudging you behind your back: The influence of implicit friendship concepts on risk taking

Research has shown that people tend to take more risks when in the presence of their friends than when they are alone. The current research examined whether mere and nonconscious activation of friendship concepts is sufficient to increase risk taking. In Experiment 1, participants who were subliminally primed with their friend’s name showed higher risk-taking responses in a modified longshot paradigm. Experiments 2 and 3 conceptually replicated the findings of Experiment 1 using a behavioral measure of risk taking – the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). In addition, Experiment 3 revealed that the nonconscious friendship-risk taking effect remained even when implicit interpersonal threat expectancies were activated. The results also showed that mood did not mediate the friendship-risk taking effect.

The Education Show

Primary Teacher UpdateVol. 2012, No. 6 EventsThe Education ShowRachel WomackRachel WomackSearch for more papers by this authorRachel WomackPublished Online:29 Sep 2013https://doi.org/10.12968/prtu.2012.1.6.44AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 1 March 2012Volume 2012Issue 6ISSN (print): 2047-8917ISSN (online): 2052-4609 Metrics History Published online 29 September 2013 Published in print 1 March 2012 Information© MA Education LimitedPDF download

Treatment sensitivity of implicit threat evaluation, avoidance tendency and visual working memory bias in specific phobia

Cognitive theories of anxiety postulate that negative processing biases play a causal role in the pathogenesis of a disorder, while a normalisation of bias drives recovery. To test these assumptions it is essential to investigate whether biases seen in anxiety are treatment-sensitive, or whether they instead represent enduring vulnerability factors. Twenty-nine spider fearfuls were tested before and after brief cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT), with half of them additionally being tested before a waiting period to control for retest effects. Using three cognitive bias tasks, we measured implicit threat evaluation (Extrinsic Affective Simon Task), avoidance tendency (Approach-Avoidance Task), and working memory for threat. CBT significantly enhanced negative implicit evaluation and avoidance. This indicates that these cognitive biases are no stable risk factors and provides further evidence for their potential key role in the development and remission of anxiety.