Freezing in response to social threat: a replication
- PDF / 586,008 Bytes
- 7 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 19 Downloads / 171 Views
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Freezing in response to social threat: a replication Marret K. Noordewier1 · Daan T. Scheepers1 · Leon P. Hilbert1 Received: 22 January 2019 / Accepted: 17 May 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Freezing is an adaptive defensive response to a stressful event. Recent research suggests that freezing not only occurs in response to physical threats but also in response to social threats (e.g., angry faces; Roelofs et al. in Psychol Sci 21:1575– 1581, 2010). Given the practical and theoretical importance of this finding, the current study aimed to replicate and extend it. Following the original study, we measured heart rate while participants viewed emotional faces (angry, happy, neutral). Extending the original study, we included a baseline measure and performed additional, more fine-grained analyses. Our results support the hypothesis that participants show physiological signs of freezing when looking at angry faces. Importantly, we also find this effect when comparing heart rate in the angry block to baseline levels. Interestingly, the heart rate effects are explained by deceleration in the first 30 s of the 1-min angry block, but not in the second 30 s. Like Roelofs et al., we find evidence that the effects are modulated by state anxiety, but our effects are only marginal and we do not replicate the negative correlation between heart rate and state anxiety in the angry block. In general, we thus find evidence for physiological signs of freezing in response to social threat. We discuss implications and venues for future research.
Introduction Freezing is a passive, defensive response to a stressful event. It is characterized by reduced body motion, reduced heart rate (bradycardia), and increased muscle tonus (Hagenaars, Oitzl, & Roelofs, 2014a). Freezing is typically associated with fear and is thought to facilitate perceptual and attentional processes aimed at identifying cues for appropriate action (Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001; Campbell, Wood, & McBride, 1997; Lang, Davis, & Öhman, 2000). Compared to animal research on freezing (e.g., De Castro Gomes & Landeira-Fernandez, 2008; Kalin & Shelton, 1989; Vianna, Graeff, Brandão, & Landeira-Fernandez, 2001) or human research on other responses to stress such as fight or flight (e.g., Bracha, 2004), human research on freezing is relatively rare. Recent studies found freezing in response to unpleasant films showing the aftermath of a fatal car accident (Hagenaars, Roelofs, & Stins, 2014b) or pictures of mutilated bodies and corpses (Azevedo et al., 2005; Hagenaars, Stins, * Marret K. Noordewier [email protected] 1
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Social, Economic and Organizational Psychology, Leiden University, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands
& Roelofs, 2012). This latter effect was particularly strong for people who had experienced aversive life events (Hagenaars et al., 2012). Research also showed that experienced fire fighters showed less threat-induced freezing than inexperienced fire fi
Data Loading...
