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By conforming to ingroup norms, individuals coordinate with other group members, preserve cohesion, and avoid costs of exclusion. Previous experiments have shown that increased concerns about infectious disease increase conformity. However, coordination with other group members has multiple benefits, most of which exist independent of pathogenic infection. Hence, a strong causal effect of pathogen avoidance motivations on conformity seems unlikely. Results from five experiments (N = 1,931) showed only limited support for the hypothesis that experimentally increasing pathogen avoidance motivations influences conformity. Overall, our findings are not consistent with the notion that the human mind contains a fast-acting psychological mechanism that regulates conformity as a function of short-term pathogen avoidance motivations.

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Social exclusion triggers aversive reactions (e.g., increased negative affect), but being excluded may bring substantial benefits by reducing pathogen exposure associated with social interactions. Is exclusion less aversive when cues of infectious diseases are salient in the environment? We conducted two preregistered experiments with a 2 (belonging status: included vs. excluded) × 2 (disease salience: low vs. high) design, using scenarios (Study 1, N = 347) and a well-validated exclusion paradigm, Cyberball (Study 2, N = 519). Positive affect and negative affect were measured as the key outcomes. Across the 2 studies, we found little evidence that disease salience moderated the effect of exclusion (vs. inclusion) on positive affect. At the same time, we observed consistent evidence that disease salience moderated the effect of exclusion (vs. inclusion) on the other affective component: negative affect. Concretely, disease salience increased participants' negative affect in inclusion conditions; in exclusion conditions, the effect of disease salience on negative affect was negligible or nearly zero. Using a novel and robust approach of mediation analysis (interventional indirect effects), we further showed that the motive of disease avoidance rivals the motive of affiliation in shaping people's experiences of social interactions. These findings suggest that cues of disease salience alter people's affective experience with inclusion but not exclusion. The current research represents an important step toward understanding people's affective responses to social exclusion and inclusion in complex social situations involving multiple, and potentially conflicting motives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

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The group attractiveness (GA) effect reveals that groups as a whole are perceived as more attractive than the average attractiveness of their members. This effect seems to be driven by selective attention to the most attractive members of a group. We hypothesized that when group members stand out because of their unattractiveness, they would make a group as a whole seem less attractive. In the current study (N = 621), we aimed to replicate the GA-effect as well as reverse it. Indeed, the data replicated a GA effect for relatively attractive groups, while in relatively unattractive groups the group as a whole was perceived as less attractive than the average attractiveness of their members.

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A theory of political belief system dynamics should incorporate causal connections between elements of the belief system and the possibility that belief systems are influenced by exogenous factors. These necessary components can be satisfied by conceptualizing an individual's belief system as a network of causally connected attitudes and identities which, via the interactions between the elements and the push of exogenous influences, produces the disparate phenomena in the belief systems literature. We implement this belief systems as networks theory in a dynamic Ising model and demonstrate that the theory can integrate at least six otherwise unrelated phenomenon in the political belief systems literature, including work on attitude consistency, cross-pressures, spillover effects, partisan cues, and ideological differences in attitude consensus. Our findings suggest that belief systems are not just one thing, but emerge from the interactions between the attitudes and identities in the belief system. All code is available: https://osf.io/aswy8/?view_only=99aff77909094bddabb5d382f6db2622.

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It has long been supposed that the confirmation bias plays a role in the prevalence and maintenance of misconceptions. However, this has been supported more by argument than by empirical evidence. In the present paper, we show how different types of belief-feedback evoke physiological responses consistent with the presence of a confirmation bias. Participants were presented with misconceptions and indicated whether they believed each misconception to be true or false, as well as how committed they were to the misconception. Each response was followed by feedback that was either clear (i.e., "correct" or "incorrect") or ambiguous (i.e., "partly correct" or "partly incorrect"). Pupillary response to each feedback condition was assessed. The results show an interaction between feedback accuracy and feedback clarity on pupil size. The largest pupil size was found in response to clear disconfirmatory feedback. The smallest pupil size was found in response to both clear and ambiguous confirmatory feedback. Crucially, the pupil responded to ambiguous confirmatory feedback as though it were wholly confirmatory. Moreover, pupil size in response to ambiguous disconfirmatory feedback was significantly smaller than response to clear disconfirmatory feedback, showing an overall trend towards confirmatory processing in the absence of clear disconfirmation. Additionally, we show a moderation by commitment towards the misconception. The greater the commitment, the larger the effect of belief-violating feedback on pupil size. These findings support recent theorizing in the field of misconceptions and, more generally, the field of inconsistency-compensation.

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In the social psychological threat-compensation literature, there is an apparent contradiction whereby relatively extreme beliefs both decrease markers of physiological arousal following meaning violations, and increase the values affirmation behaviors understood as a palliative responses to this arousal. We hypothesize that this is due to the differential impact of measuring extremism on behavioral inhibition and approach systems following meaning violations, whereby extremism both reduces markers of conflict arousal (BIS) and increases values affirmation (BAS) unrelated to this initial arousal. Using pupil dilation as a proxy for immediate conflict arousal, we found that the same meaning violation (anomalous playing cards) evoked greater pupil dilation, and that this pupillary reaction was diminished in participants who earlier reported extreme beliefs. We also found that reporting extreme beliefs was associated with greater affirmation of an unrelated meaning framework, where this affirmation was unrelated to physiological markers of conflict arousal.

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People maintain systems of beliefs that provide them with a sense of belongingness, control, identity, and meaning, more generally. Recent research shows that when these beliefs are threatened a syndrome of negatively valenced arousal is evoked that motivates people to seek comfort in their ideologies or other personally valued beliefs. In this paper we will provide an overview of this process and discuss areas for future research. Beginning with the neural foundations of meaning violations, we review findings that show the anterior cingulate cortex is responsible for detecting inconsistencies, and importantly, that this is experienced as aversive. Next, we evaluate the evidential support for a psychophysiological arousal response as measured by cardiography and skin conductance. We discuss how current theorizing proposes that subsequent behavioral approach ameliorates the negative arousal and serves as an effective, well-adapted coping response, but we also aim to further integrate this process in the existing threat-compensation literature. Finally, we speculate on whether approach motivation is likely to result when one feels capable of handling the threat, thereby incorporating the biopsychosocial model that distinguishes between challenge and threat into the motivational threat-response literature. We believe the current literature on threat and meaning has much to offer and we aim to provide new incentives for further development.