Fear leads to suffering: Fears of compassion predict restriction of the moral boundary

Empirical investigations into the psychological drivers of more or less expansive moral thinking are lacking from the psychological literature. One potential driver that warrants deeper investigation is compassion - a prosocial motivation to both identity and alleviate suffering. The current research examined the extent to which compassion, and fears of compassion, act as a driver and inhibitor, respectively, of a morally expansive mindset. We tested these associations across three studies (N = 749) and found robust support for our predictions. Specifically, stronger compassion to others, and greater fears of extending compassion to others, were linked to enhanced and reduced moral expansiveness, respectively. Moreover, over and above empathy and mindfulness, fears of compassion and compassion uniquely predicted moral expansiveness. Finally, compassion was found to consistently mediate the relationship between fears of compassion to others and moral expansiveness. Our findings further our understanding of the psychological factors that may drive and restrict morally expansive mindsets and hold implications for the broader domains of moral decision-making and prosocial motivation as well as the application of practices that are designed to facilitate a compassionate mindset (e.g., Compassionate Mind Training).

Youth Extremism as a Response to Global Threats?

Abstract. Violent extremism is rising across the globe as indicated by the growing number of attacks of terrorist organizations. It is known that violent extremism is carried out mainly by young people due to developmental and external factors. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that ideologically motivated violence stems from threat-regulation processes aiming to restore significance, control, and certainty. Nevertheless, few studies from the threat-regulation literature have focused on youth samples and on the social-economic and political context in which radicalization processes occur. Here, we hypothesize that one driver of the surge in violent extremism might be globalization. To do so, we review the evidence that shows that globalization increases the perception of affiliative, economic, and existential threats. In return, some studies suggest that these kinds of threats promote violent extremism among youth samples. Therefore, we conclude that the threatening context generated by four decades of globalization might be a risk factor for youth extremism in the long run.

Dispositional Fear and Political Attitudes

Previous work proposes that dispositional fear exists predominantly among political conservatives, generating the appearance that fears align strictly along party lines. This view obscures evolutionary dynamics because fear evolved to protect against myriad threats, not merely those in the political realm. We suggest prior work in this area has been biased by selection on the dependent variable, resulting from an examination of exclusively politically oriented fears that privilege conservative values. Because the adaptation regulating fear should be based upon both universal and ancestral-specific selection pressures combined with developmental and individual differences, the elicitation of it should prove variable across the ideological continuum dependent upon specific combinations of fear and value domains. In a sample of ~ 1,600 Australians assessed with a subset of the Fear Survey Schedule II, we find fears not infused with political content are differentially influential across the political spectrum. Specifically, those who are more fearful of sharp objects, graveyards, and urinating in public are more socially conservative and less supportive of gay rights. Those who are more fearful of death are more supportive of gay rights. Those who are more fearful of suffocating and swimming alone are more concerned about emissions controls and immigration, while those who are more fearful of thunderstorms are also more anti-immigration. Contrary to existing research, both liberals and conservatives are more fearful of different circumstances, and the role of dispositional fears are attitude-specific.

Pathogens and Immigrants: A Critical Appraisal of the Behavioral Immune System as an Explanation of Prejudice Against Ethnic Outgroups

The last two decades have seen the development of a body of literature in evolutionary psychology that seeks to attribute negative attitudes to ethnic and racial minorities and other outgroups to an evolved behavioral immune system (BIS). It hypothesizes that disgust sensitivity, which evolved as protection against pathogen threats, also triggers reactions to cues that are not viscerally disgusting, such as people with unfamiliar features, and thus can explain prejudice toward members of these groups. Such an explanation seems to limit the influence of education, public policy, and rhetoric on those attitudes. Our conceptual analysis shows that this is not the case. Existing hypotheses about why the BIS would be triggered even in the absence of visceral disgust elicitors suggest that general unfamiliarity or atypicality act as cues for this hypersensitive threat detection system. This implies that the impact of the BIS must depend on the cultural and societal context in which people learn not only what is disgusting but also what is typical. The social context of personal interaction with mass media representation of and political debate about immigrants consequently needs to be considered as a decisive factor for any effect of the BIS on attitudes and behavior toward ethnic and racial outgroups. The BIS is therefore not a separate or even superordinate explanation of prejudice, compared to those coming from the social sciences. We conclude that it can offer valuable insights into processes of stigmatization and prejudice, once the role of social learning in the developmental unfolding and activation of psychological mechanisms is taken seriously.