Exploring the landscape of psychological threat: A cartography of threats and threat responses

Abstract

Over the recent years, research in the field of threat and defense has accumulated evidence on how encounters with various psychological threats influence human behavior, cognition, motivation, affect, and health. Unifying different theoretical threat models, the General Process Model of Threat and Defense claims that different threatening concerns have a similar underlying dynamic. Some years after the publication of this theory, we deem it important to take a comparative look at psychological threat, comparing threats regarding their properties and outcomes on personal and social level. As potential dimensions to describe psychological threats, we discuss the existential nature of concerns, phenomenological worlds involved, and thwarted needs in threat encounters. We also discuss data‐driven approaches to threat classifications, describing first empirical efforts to create threat taxonomies, and suggest directions for future research. This research will enhance our understanding of threat dynamics, and will help us make stronger, more clear‐cut assumptions about human behavior upon experiencing threat.

Expectation violation and cognitive dissonance theory: Proposal for an epistemic inconsistency management model

“…However, it lacks clear predictions regarding which strategy will occur (see . The most recent models explore the proposed regulation strategies and the general process model of threat and defence (GPMTD) (Jonas et al, 2014;Reiss et al, 2021) offers compelling proposals.…”

“…However, it lacks clear predictions regarding which strategy will occur (see Proulx et al., 2012). The most recent models explore the proposed regulation strategies and the general process model of threat and defence (GPMTD) (Jonas et al., 2014; Reiss et al., 2021) offers compelling proposals. Nonetheless, very little has been done regarding direct regulation and this is why the current model focuses on them.…”

The effects of perceived COVID‐19 threat on compensatory conviction, thought reliance, and attitudes

“…The COVID‐19 pandemic has been a global threat to millions of individuals around the world. Many social psychological approaches can help in understanding how people respond to threats in general (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1986; Heine et al., 2006; Kay et al., 2009; McGregor, 2006; Proulx, 2012; van den Bos, 2009; see also Hart, 2014; Jonas et al., 2014; Reiss et al., 2021; for reviews), as well as threats associated with the pandemic in particular (e.g., Ackerman et al., 2021; Simchon et al., 2021). The present research focuses on COVID‐19 as a current existential threat, analysing how individuals can respond to this threat through a meta‐cognitive process of thought validation in accord with the principles of Self‐Validation Theory (SVT; Briñol & Petty, 2022).…”

Right‐wing authoritarianism and anti‐Asian prejudice in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United States

“…These can include personal threats, social threats, environmental threats, and spiritual threats (Jonas et al, 2014). In a recent review, Reiss et al (2021) outlined the landscape of psychological threat, and these expanded on prior work to include threats to mortality, isolation, uncertainty, meaning, freedom, social exclusion, and relationships. Because it impinges on all of these, the authors categorized the COVID‐19 pandemic as a separate kind of “super‐threat” (see also Jutzi et al, 2020).…”

“…We engage in defense against this threat by investing in culture, which reduces anxiety felt in response to the threat. According to Reiss et al (2021), all categories of threat cause negative affect (e.g., feeling threatened). Every category of threat outlined in this taxonomy causes anxiety, and less frequently, threats can also cause nervousness, hostility, sadness, and sorrow.…”