No abstract

Threatening situations have been shown to influence prosocial and altruistic behaviour in laboratory studies. However, it is unknown whether those effects would transfer to a real-life crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined the impact of changing COVID-19 threat on everyday altruism. Specifically, we investigated the association between defensive emotions associated with varying levels of perceived threat imminence, and reported frequency of altruistic behaviours. A sample of 600 United States residents was recruited online via Prolific at 4 different timepoints in March and April (n=150 each week). We collected self-report measures of everyday altruism, Perceived COVID-19 threat, and defensive emotions associated with varying threat imminence (anticipatory versus acute anxiety). Linear mixed effects models were used to predict variation in everyday altruism as a function of perceived COVID-19 threat and defensive emotions. Our results revealed a clear and consistent association between acute anxiety in response to the pandemic, and frequency of altruistic behaviours. No significant association was found between altruism and less acute defensive responses. These results suggest acute defensive emotions associated with higher threat imminence may promote altruistic action during a real-life crisis.

No abstract

Specific phobia is a debilitating fear of an object or situation and one of the most common psychological disorders (Wardenaar et al., 2017). The treatment of choice is exposure therapy because it is highly effective on selfreported fear and behavioral avoidance, particularly so for in vivo exposure therapy (IVET) involving real-life exposure to feared stimuli or situations (Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2008).

Although our understanding of human olfactory perception has increased dramatically, it remains less well understood how olfaction interacts with cognitive processes. In this overview, we review the claim that olfaction evolved to predominantly embody “novelty detection”, a framework that leaves little room for cognitive representations and processes. We challenge this framework by pointing to several perceived limitations. Instead, we argue that human olfaction is best understood in terms of its reliance on top-down processes; visual or verbal contexts may generate predictions of odor qualities, and a fundamental role of olfaction is to evaluate such predictions. We hypothesize that olfaction is to a large extent dependent on “top-down” cognitive processes. We discuss how this framework differs from other contemporary approaches to human olfactory perception. We conclude that in contrast to other frameworks that characterize olfaction primarily in terms of stimulus-driven perception, human olfactory processing is best understood by invoking a “view from the top”.