Terrorism threats and preparedness in Canada: the perspective of the Canadian public

Although Canada has not experienced a major terrorist attack, an increased global pending threat has put preparedness at the top of the Canadian government's agenda. Given its strong multicultural community and close proximity to the recently targeted United States, the Canadian experience is unique. However, minimal research exists on the public's reactions to terrorism threats and related preparedness strategies. In order for response initiatives to be optimally effective, it is important that the public's opinions regarding terrorism and preparedness be considered. This qualitative study examined perceptions of terrorism threats among Canadians living in Central and Eastern Canada (N = 75) in the fall of 2004. Conceptualizations of terrorism threat, psychosocial impacts, and sense of preparedness were explored in a series of qualitative interviews. Findings revealed that the majority of Canadians did not feel overly threatened by terrorist attacks, due in part to a perception of terrorist threats as related to global sociopolitical events and a positive Canadian identity. In addition, while most respondents did not feel they were individually affected by the threat of terrorism, there was some concern regarding larger societal impacts, such as increased paranoia, discrimination, and threats to civil liberties. Participants' views on preparedness focused largely on the utility of emergency preparedness strategies and the factors that could mitigate or inhibit preparedness at the individual and institutional levels, with a specific focus on education. Finally, the significant relevance of these findings in shaping terrorism preparedness, both in Canada and generally, is discussed.     

Relationship between cognitive appraisals of symptoms and negative mood for subtypes of irritable bowel syndrome

Background

The onset and course of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are strongly influenced by psychological factors, and treatment often includes cognitive-behavioral therapy. We conducted a study of the relationships between cognitive appraisal of IBS symptoms and negative mood for the subtypes of IBS.

Method

The participants were 1087 college students who completed a set of questionnaires that included the Rome II Modular Questionnaire, Self-reported IBS Questionnaire, Cognitive Appraisal Rating Scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.

Results

The participants included 206 individuals with IBS; 61 had diarrhea-predominant IBS (IBSD) and 45 had constipation-predominant IBS (IBSC). The overall IBS group scored higher on anxiety and depression than the control group. The IBSD and IBSC groups each had significantly higher scores for anxiety but did not significantly differ from the control group in scores for depression. There were no significant differences between the IBSD and IBSC groups in their cognitive appraisal of IBS symptoms. For the IBSD group, anxiety was significantly, positively correlated with commitment, effect, and threat, and depression was significantly, negatively correlated with controllability. In contrast, there were no significant correlations between mood and cognitive appraisal for the IBSC group. Multiple regression analyses with abdominal symptoms as dependent variables and cognitive appraisals as independent variables showed that for the IBSD group, abdominal pain was significantly, positively correlated with commitment, and abdominal discomfort was significantly, positively correlated with appraisal of effect and threat. For the IBSC group, abdominal pain and hard stool were significantly, positively correlated with commitment, and abdominal discomfort was significantly, positively correlated with appraisal of effect and threat.

Conclusion

IBS patients as a general group report high levels of anxiety and depression. However, IBSD and IBSC were both associated only with high anxiety, but not depression, when compared to the non-IBS control group. For the IBSD group, anxiety was associated with cognitive appraisals, but this association was not found for the IBSC group. These groups did not differ in their associated cognitive appraisals, and are similar in terms of the positive relationship between abdominal pain and discomfort and the cognitive appraisals of coping.

     

Comparing the adoption of protective behaviors: The framing effects of national culture and hazard onset type

On the basis of framing effect and protective action decision model, this study examines the differences in people's response to diverse hazard onset types (sudden or gradual) under different cultural frameworks (China and the United States) and the framing effects of culture and hazard onset type on people's perception and behavioral response. The data are derived from three questionnaire surveys on people's behavioral response to H7N9 and smog emergency in China and H1N1 in the United States. Results indicate that people with different cultures and diverse contexts of hazard onset type present substantial differences in risk perception, protective action perception, stakeholder perception, and behavioral expectations. Furthermore, culture and hazard onset type exert significant framing effects on people's three types of perception, reliance on official information sources, and intention to adopt protective actions. This research empirically verifies the existence of framing effect in culture and decision scenarios, thereby helping in developing different emergency communication strategies.     

Women and men integrate facial information differently in appraising the beauty of a face

Facial beauty plays a crucial role in social interactions, particularly in mating and reproduction. Therefore, the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms used for facial beauty assessment should be susceptible to different evolutionary and cultural pressures across genders and thus shape different observational appraising strategies. Using a novel approach, I evaluated the observers' subjective and unique importance given to specific facial attributes: eyes, nose, lips, and hair, and their spatial organization in the process of appraising the beauty of the whole face. These importance measures reveal the modulation of the integration of attributes strategy across the gender of observers and the sex of face. The degree of agreement about the beauty of the studied facial attributes was modulated across gender of observers and, for women observers, also across sex of face. Finally, I show that beauty appraisal can be mainly explained by a simple additive manner of isolated facial attributes appraisals.     

Animal Humanness,Animal Use,and Intention to Become Ethical Vegetarian or Ethical Vegan

The present study used relational and predictive approaches to build on past literature examining humanlike animal attributes. From the relational approach, it examined how five humanlike attributes ascribed to animals (Attributes Questionnaire) relate to one another and to attitudes toward 21 uses of animals (Attitudes Toward the Use of Animals Scale). From the predictive approach, it examined the predictive power of human affection toward animals and human perception of animal minds for granting animals moral consideration; additionally, it analyzed the predictive power of humanlike animal attributes for willingness to become an ethical vegetarian or ethical vegan. These analyses focused specifically on gender differences. The author used SPSS and SmartPLS 3.0, a Partial Least Square tool, for statistical analyses. Results from 481 Spanish university students responding to online and pencil-and-paper questionnaires revealed overall moderate correlations between different humanlike attributes and low correlations between those attributes and animal uses. Affection toward animals and perception of animal minds were good predictors for moral consideration of animals, especially when all four attributes were aggregated in the model (R² = 0.47; Q² = 0.32). Humanlike animal attributes directly affected students’ intentions to become vegetarian and vegan but the explanatory power was weak in both cases (R² < 0.19; Q² < 0.15). The study also revealed significant gender differences. Among women, humanlike animal attributes were more closely interrelated, better correlated with a greater number of animal uses, and stronger drivers of the moral status of animals. However, data showed no significant gender differences for path strength of humanlike animal attributes on the willingness to become vegetarian or vegan. In sum, perceiving humanlike attributes in animals has ethical consequences, but its influence on the adoption of pro-animal attitudes and behavior are still unclear. More research is needed to explore and explain causal relationships between the aforementioned variables and to uncover how gender differences may affect them.     

Risk Literacy and Risk Perception Among Undergraduates in Mainland China: The Case of BSE

Risk response and cognitive characteristics of different groups are important aspects in risk research. In this article we discuss the general features of risk literacy and perception among undergraduates at Nanjing University and Huaiyin Institute of Technology in China in the case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The results show that: (1) there seem to be no relationships between respondents’ knowledge about BSE and their risk identification; (2) between all contrast samples, the greatest divergence appears in the judgment about probability of risk while the smallest one is the trust in science and technology to avoid BSE; (3) the judgment of hazard probability would be related to gender, family location, and the backgrounds of college and academic specialty. And only gender has impact on the affirmation of hazard with a significant level of 0.05. These findings provide insights into the comprehension of undergraduates’ risk literacy and perception, and can contribute to the improvement of risk communication and management in China.     

Role of social cognition in post‐traumatic stress disorder: A review and meta‐analysis

Social functioning is a key component of recovery after a potentially traumatic experience, and the buffering role of the social support in trauma resilience and recovery has been very well documented. Factors contributing to resilience and recovery are notable because although most people will experience a traumatic event during their lifetimes, only 6% to 10% are diagnosed with post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The relationship between an individual and their social environment is determined both by the quality of the social environment itself, and by the individual's perception and understanding of information conveyed by the other people around them. However, little research has considered the contribution of these internal social cognitive processes to PTSD risk or resilience. The current review draws on the existing literature on social cognitive functioning in trauma exposure and PTSD, identifying key questions and themes for future research. We utilized a meta‐analytic approach to assess the evidence for alterations in social cognition in PTSD, finding a consistent large deficit in social cognitive performance in PTSD groups relative to trauma‐exposed and healthy controls. We then reviewed the literature on the interaction of genes and the social environment, supporting the hypothesis that social cognitive deficits are a preexisting risk factor for PTSD. Finally, we reviewed relevant neuroimaging findings, which suggest that alterations in social cognition affect the perception of threat cues in PTSD. Overall, research on social cognition and PTSD is still emerging, but existing findings suggest this is an important and understudied area for the understanding of PTSD.     

Personality influences the neural responses to viewing facial expressions of emotion

Cognitive research has long been aware of the relationship between individual differences in personality and performance on behavioural tasks. However, within the field of cognitive neuroscience, the way in which such differences manifest at a neural level has received relatively little attention. We review recent research addressing the relationship between personality traits and the neural response to viewing facial signals of emotion. In one section, we discuss work demonstrating the relationship between anxiety and the amygdala response to facial signals of threat. A second section considers research showing that individual differences in reward drive (behavioural activation system), a trait linked to aggression, influence the neural responsivity and connectivity between brain regions implicated in aggression when viewing facial signals of anger. Finally, we address recent criticisms of the correlational approach to fMRI analyses and conclude that when used appropriately, analyses examining the relationship between personality and brain activity provide a useful tool for understanding the neural basis of facial expression processing and emotion processing in general.     

Quantitative impact of mental health preparedness training for public health professionals

Coordinating and integrating mental health topics into emergency preparedness planning is a critical step for ensuring effective response to the psychological issues connected with trauma. In order to remedy the current lack of integration, potential response providers must receive effective mental health preparedness training. The current study provided mental health preparedness training to public health and allied health professionals in Kansas and assessed the impact of the training on perceived mental health preparedness knowledge. Participants included 157 potential first and secondary responders from public health and allied fields who attended one of 10 training presentations on mental health emergency preparedness. Pre- and post-presentation, participants responded to six Likert-scale questions about their perceived knowledge of topics and level of mental health preparedness. Questions addressed common psychological responses to disaster or terrorist events, stress reactions of specific populations, psychological resiliency, mental health preparedness integration, and level of agency preparedness. Post-training, participants reported statistically significant (p<0.001) increases in perceived level of knowledge on all topics. Participants were also significantly more likely (p<0.001) to report that their agency could respond to the mental health issues related to a disaster or emergency. The current study provides data about gaps in practitioner knowledge regarding mental health preparedness in Kansas. While the self-report nature of responses is a limitation, these findings serve as the first step toward producing and implementing effective mental health preparedness information and training on a wide scale.     

Predicting consumers’ intention to consume poultry during an H7N9 emergency: an extension of the theory of planned behavior model

Abstract

Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this article explains the impact of H7N9 on poultry meat consumption. A sample of 710 respondents from China participated in the current study following an outbreak of avian influenza in 2017. The empirical results of structural equation model indicate that the consumers’ attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control (i.e., the antecedents of the TPB model), as well as their anticipated fear, mediate the relationship between risk perception of H7N9 and poultry consumption intention. Risk perception of H7N9 also influences risk perception of poultry, which has a direct effect on poultry consumption intention. Furthermore, risk perception of poultry is significantly and positively related to anticipated fear and is significantly and negatively related to attitude, which in turn influences the consumption intention. The results confirm the appropriateness of the TPB model and verify that the extended TPB model has good explanatory power in predicting consumers’ intention to consume poultry during a pandemic.     

Parasite primes make foreign-accented English sound more distant to people who are disgusted by pathogens (but not by sex or morality)

To avoid disease, people should maintain close ties with ingroup members but maintain distance from outgroup members who possess novel pathogens. Consistent with this disease-avoidance hypothesis, pathogenic stimuli, as well as increased personal vulnerability to disease, are associated with xenophobic and ethnocentric attitudes. Researchers assume that this disease-avoidance process is an automatic emotional response that compels negative attitudes and behavioral avoidance. However, when outgroup contact can represent fitness costs or benefits, and when group membership is an uncertain cue to infection risk, it becomes a fitness advantage for a social perceiver to track group membership and thus infection risk. Given that accents can be a cue to group membership, we predicted that the perception of linguistic similarity to ingroup speakers and dissimilarity from outgroup speakers would increase with individual differences in pathogen disgust, and that this association would be most apparent when threat of disease was salient. This hypothesis was confirmed in two experiments. Further, the mechanism was domain specific—disgust due to sexual acts and moral violations did not moderate perceived linguistic distance. The disease-avoidance mechanism is not just an automatic disgust-based reaction; it also operates through the cognitive appraisal of social distance.     

情绪的脑机制研究在社会认知神经科学中的进展

社会认知神经科学是近几年国外新兴起的交叉学科,旨在阐述社会性、情绪性的体验与行为的心理和神经基础。它综合了认知神经科学与社会心理学研究的长处,对刻板印象、态度与态度改变、他人知觉、自我认知以及情绪与认知交互作用等方面进行了深入研究。主要范式是应用认知神经科学的方法来验证社会心理学在这些范畴上的各种不同理论观点,并在某些方面取得了突破性进展,但仍存在着广泛的发展空间。随着当前各种脑成像技术的革新,人们对情绪状态下大脑的神经活动的了解在原来认知的层面上有了进一步提升。本文主要阐述社会认知神经科学在情绪的脑机制研究上所取得的进展。     

Emergency communication and information issues in terrorist events involving radioactive materials

With the threat posed by terrorism involving radioactive materials now high on the nation's agenda, local, state, and federal agencies are moving to enhance preparedness and response capabilities. Crucial to these efforts is the development of effective risk communication strategies. This article reports findings from an ongoing study of risk communication issues in nuclear/radiological terrorism situations. It is part of a larger CDC-funded effort that aims to better understand communication challenges associated with weapons of mass destruction terrorism incidents. Presented here are formative research findings from 16 focus groups (n = 163) in which a multi-part, hypothetical radioactive materials terrorism situation was discussed. Twelve of the focus groups were carried out with members of the general public (drawn from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and geographic locations), and four groups were composed of first responders, hospital emergency department personnel, and public health professionals. One aim of the focus groups was to elicit detailed information on people's knowledge, views, perceptions, reactions, and concerns related to a nuclear/radiological terrorism event, and to better understand people's specific information needs and preferred information sources. A second aim was to pretest draft informational materials prepared by CDC and NIOSH. Key findings for the public and professional groups are presented, and the implications of the research for developing messages in radiological/nuclear terrorism situations are explored.     

School nurses as volunteers in a bioterrorism event

Most public health departments do not have enough public health nurses to adequately respond to a bioterrorist attack or other large-scale health emergency and would need to look to volunteers to help with staffing needs in an emergency. The National Association of School Nurses supports the use of school nurses, a skilled workforce, as responders in a mass casualty event, whether it is naturally occurring or as a result of bioterrorism. This article explores the use of school nurses to supplement public health staff during an emergency. A Likert-scale survey was used to assess the preparedness and willingness of school nurses to respond to a health threat. Although school nurses are willing to respond, the findings highlight the importance of continued education on risk and personal protection.     

Affect-Laden Imagery and Risk Taking: The Mediating Role of Stress and Risk Perception

This paper investigates how affect-laden imagery that evokes emotional stress influences risk perception and risk taking in real-life scenarios. In a series of three studies, we instructed participants to imagine the consequences of risky scenarios and then rate the intensity of the experienced stress, perceived risk and their willingness to engage in risky behavior. Study 1 showed that people spontaneously imagine negative rather than positive risk consequences, which are directly related to their lower willingness to take risk. Moreover, this relationship was mediated by feelings of stress and risk perception. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings by showing that imagining negative risk consequences evokes psychophysiological stress responses observed in elevated blood pressure. Finally, in Study 3, we once again demonstrated that a higher intensity of mental images of negative risk consequences, as measured by enhanced brain activity in the parieto-occipital lobes, leads to a lower propensity to take risk. Furthermore, individual differences in creating vivid and intense negative images of risk consequences moderated the strength of the relationship between risk perception and risk taking. Participants who created more vivid and intense images of negative risk consequences paid less attention to the assessments of riskiness in rating their likelihood to take risk. To summarize, we showed that feelings of emotional stress and perceived riskiness mediate the relationship between mental imagery and risk taking, whereas individual differences in abilities to create vivid mental images may influence the degree to which more cognitive risk assessments are used in the risk-taking process.     

How intelligent is a cephalopod? Lessons from comparative cognition

The soft-bodied cephalopods including octopus, cuttlefish, and squid are broadly considered to be the most cognitively advanced group of invertebrates. Previous research has demonstrated that these large-brained molluscs possess a suite of cognitive attributes that are comparable to those found in some vertebrates, including highly developed perception, learning, and memory abilities. Cephalopods are also renowned for performing sophisticated feats of flexible behaviour, which have led to claims of complex cognition such as causal reasoning, future planning, and mental attribution. Hypotheses to explain why complex cognition might have emerged in cephalopods suggest that a combination of predation, foraging, and competitive pressures are likely to have driven cognitive complexity in this group of animals. Currently, it is difficult to gauge the extent to which cephalopod behaviours are underpinned by complex cognition because many of the recent claims are largely based on anecdotal evidence. In this review, we provide a general overview of cephalopod cognition with a particular focus on the cognitive attributes that are thought to be prerequisites for more complex cognitive abilities. We then discuss different types of behavioural flexibility exhibited by cephalopods and, using examples from other taxa, highlight that behavioural flexibility could be explained by putatively simpler mechanisms. Consequently, behavioural flexibility should not be used as evidence of complex cognition. Fortunately, the field of comparative cognition centres on designing methods to pinpoint the underlying mechanisms that drive behaviours. To illustrate the utility of the methods developed in comparative cognition research, we provide a series of experimental designs aimed at distinguishing between complex cognition and simpler alternative explanations. Finally, we discuss the advantages of using cephalopods to develop a more comprehensive reconstruction of cognitive evolution.     

Human-nature connection and soundscape perception: Insights from Tierra del Fuego,Argentina

Human disconnection from nature is thought to have contributed to the environmental crises we currently face, and increasing connection with nature has been proposed as one way of promoting pro-environmental behavior, nature conservation, and social-ecological sustainability. Some efforts to increase connection with nature (“nature relatedness”) have centered on exploring the social-ecological importance of soundscapes, but there is a paucity of empirical evidence supporting the theoretical linkage between soundscape perception and nature relatedness. Using prerecorded and in situ soundscape prompts, we conducted a street intercept survey in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina to assess: 1) the relative importance of senses in experiences of nature, 2) the relationship between nature relatedness and soundscape perception, 3) differences in soundscape perception between various soundscapes, and 4) possible sociodemographic influences on sense importance, nature relatedness, and soundscape perception. Participants reported that hearing was of secondary importance to vision in experiences of nature. We also found that nature relatedness was positively correlated with the valuation of soundscapes—particularly more natural ones—but not with the discernment of soundscapes or identification of where soundscapes were recorded. Valuation of more natural soundscapes was higher than valuation of more technophonically dominated soundscapes, while soundscape discernment and location identification were higher for soundscapes that were likely more familiar to listeners. Sociodemographic influences on these variables were minor, but women reported higher sense importance, and having a nature-based occupation was associated with higher nature relatedness and valuation of a soundscape from a penguin colony. Our study highlighted a number of potential research areas concerning soundscape perception, including differences between prerecorded and in situ soundscape prompts, defining various aspects of soundscape perception, and the relative influences of sound sources and quantitative acoustic parameters on soundscape perception. Further research is certainly needed to account for global diversity in cultures and soundscapes, but we found some promising empirical support for the use of natural-soundscape-focused educational programs in efforts to promote nature relatedness.     

Knowledge,Morality, and Threat Perception: A Juxtaposition of Internal Influences on Climate Change–Related Behavioral Intentions in Nigeria

As part of efforts to mitigate the consequences of environmental degradation resulting from negative human activities, the focus of social–scientific studies on human–nature relationships has expanded in the last two decades to include research on the behavioral dimensions of global climate change. Current research findings make it apparent that sociopsychological influences play a highly significant role in the cognitive processes that underlie environmental behaviors. Factors such as awareness, moral responsibility, and threat perception have been identified as some of the most important influences on positive climate change–related behaviors in many Western societies. However, to date very few studies of this nature have been conducted in African contexts. Hence, in this study, we attempt to help fill this gap by comparing the effects of three models of behavior: (1) awareness, (2) moral responsibility, and (3) threat perception, as frameworks of climate change–related behavior among a sample of Nigerian urbanites. Analysis of our data, generated by a questionnaire survey, revealed that the threat perception model explained the largest amount of variance in behavioral intentions (R² = 0.23). The differences in the performances of the models are discussed together with the implications of our findings for climate change advocacy efforts in the region.     

Gender differences of brain activity in the conflicts based on implicit self-esteem

There are gender differences in global and domain-specific self-esteem and the incidence of some psychiatric disorders related to self-esteem, suggesting that there are gender differences in the neural basis underlying one's own self-esteem. We investigated gender differences in the brain activity while subjects (14 males and 12 females) performed an implicit self-esteem task, using fMRI. While ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was significantly activated in females, medial and dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC) were activated in males in the incongruent condition (self = negative) compared with the congruent condition (self = positive). Additionally, scores on the explicit self-esteem test were negatively correlated with vmPFC activity in females and positively correlated with dmPFC activity in males. Furthermore, the functional relationships among the regions found by direct gender comparisons were discussed based on the somatic-marker model. These showed that, compared to males, females more firmly store even the incongruent associations as part of their schematic self-knowledge, and such associations automatically activate the neural networks for emotional response and control, in which vmPFC plays a central role. This may explain female cognitive/behavioral traits; females have more tendency to ruminate more often than males, which sometimes results in a prolonged negative affect.     

Communication Practices for Oil Spills: Stakeholder Engagement During Preparedness and Response

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was a pivotal moment in the expression of and reporting on stakeholder risk perceptions about oil spills, response options, and safety. Public engagement through both traditional and social media was arguably much higher than in prior spills. The DWH response organization undertook a wide variety of activities to manage risks and communicate with both the general public and those directly affected, such as commercial fishers. However, these did not fully address widespread concerns about ecological and human health risks associated with dispersant use. Consequentially the DWH spill heightened awareness of persistent risk communication problems around oil spill response, and especially dispersant use. Oil spill risk research and experience suggests that institutional and operational factors inhibit engaging communities and stakeholders during oil spill preparedness and response, and that such engagement is essential for effective risk management. In this article we review and assess current oil spill preparedness and response practices for community and stakeholder engagement, including related institutional and operational constraints. This assessment suggests five example risk management practices to improve and advance risk communications during oil spill preparedness and response activities.