Threatening Objects Appear Closer
Previous studies have found that, when faced with a
threat, our body responds in certain ways that enable us to act quickly when
faced with a threat: heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of the stress
hormone cortisol all increase. But some research suggests that the body may
also demonstrate its preparedness through certain perceptual biases.
One of the new research says “We're more likely to see
threatening objects as closer than they really are”, a misperception that may
fuel us to act in ways to avoid dangerous situations, psychology researchers at
New York University and Cornell University have found.
Their findings appear in Psychological Science, a journal
of the Association for Psychological Science.
Previous studies have found that, when faced with a
threat, our body responds in certain ways that enable us to act quickly when
faced with a threat: heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of the stress
hormone cortisol all increase. But some research suggests that the body may
also demonstrate its preparedness through certain perceptual biases.
The study's three researchers -- Emily Balcetis, an
assistant professor in NYU's Department of Psychology, Shana Cole, an NYU
doctoral student, and David Dunning, a Cornell professor of psychology --
sought to understand this process and put forth what they call the
"threat-signal hypothesis." It posits that we need to become
increasingly prepared to act as a threat gets closer, so we're best served by
misperceiving objects as being closer to us the more threatening they are.
Specifically, the hypothesis suggests that we should misperceive threatening
objects as closer than non-threatening objects that evoke equally strong and
negative responses, such as disgust.
The researchers tested their hypothesis through a pair of
studies.
In the first, 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. However, 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 pin-point 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 (a confederate in the experiment) they had never seen before.
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. 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 they just saw in the video, 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 consistently 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."
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