From anxiety to approach - Testing a unified model of threat and defense

What will happen after I die? What is the meaning of life? These are only two of many existential questions that humans have to face and that they cannot truthfully answer. Social psychological research of the last two decades has shown that people sometimes cope with anxiety resulting from existential in symbolic, indirect ways, such as identifying with worldviews, ideologies and groups. A number of relatively separated research traditions have emerged that try to explain why, arguing that existential concerns frustrate important human needs, such as control, certainty, or meaning, leading to a core motive debate. This debate has motivated us (Jonas et al., 2013) to propose a process model of threat and defense that is agnostic of specific needs. Our model is based on the assumption of two motivational systems, the Behavioral inhibition and activation systems (BIS and BAS, respectively) that roots in a neuropsychological theory of anxiety (Gray & McNaughton, 2000). In a nutshell, threat activates the Behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and individuals use approach-oriented behaviors in order to activate the Behavioral approach system (BAS), which relieves anxiety. In the present proposal, our goal is to test a number of predictions from this general model of threat and defense using four series of studies with a combination of behavioral, physiological, and neurophysiological measurement and manipulation techniques. The main hypothesis of Study series 1 is that existential threat leads to arousal, avoidance motivation and vigilance, the three core outputs of the BIS. In Study series 2, we will test whether affirming ideals or worldviews produces approach motivation, an indicator for BAS. In Study series 3, our goal is to induce approach motivation artificially, expecting that people will not defend themselves against existential threat when the BAS is already activated. In Study series 4, our aim is to pinpoint the BIS and BAS stages in a typical threat salience paradigm using on-line electrophysiological measures.

Despite the accomplishments of modern civilization, the world is far from being a safe or predictable place, and therefore potentially threatening. In addition, people often struggle with more basic 'existential' threats: they find themselves feeling thrown into the world without protection, and struggling with feelings of uncertainty, meaninglessness, loneliness, and absurdity. People respond to these feelings with a large number of behaviors that can be called 'defense.' Different social psychological theories focus on different kinds of threats (e.g., mortality, uncontrollability, uncertainty, or meaninglessness). In an international collaboration, we have put forward an integrative model of threat and defense. It states that defensive responses to threat follow a two-phase pattern: an initial phase of conflict and anxiety is followed by a phase of unconflicted approach motivation. In this project, our primary aim was to empirically test this model. Threat activates the so-called Behavioral inhibition system which is based in the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain. When activated, the BIS produces a compound of temporary anxious affect, avoidance motivation, arousal, and attentional bias toward threat. People typically experience this state as aversive, and are motivated to leave it by 'flipping' toward a less conflicted state guided by the Behavioral activation system (BAS) in which they focus on positive, rewarding things. This project helped to better understand the neural substrates of the behavioral inhibition and activation systems. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography, we demonstrated that different threats produce a similar BIS-related neural signature. Moreover, we broke ground with regard to conceptualizing threat-related arousal; for example, we showed that threats lead to self-reported arousal without necessarily causing any measurable physiological activation. We showed that threat and defense phenomena play a role in the context of global crises related to climate change, migration, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we were unable to pinpoint the 'flip' from BIS to BAS-activation based on frontal asymmetry data, we developed a new paradigm that revealed functional differences between two defensive strategies which we call direct resolution and palliation. Direct resolution increases approach motivation while leaving anxiety unchanged, while palliation reduces anxiety while leaving approach motivation unchanged.