Integrated processing of different social threats? Probing the specificity of a common expectancy-based system with electrophysiological markers

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Rudolf Kerschreiter; Professor Dr. Michael Niedeggen
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 447356493

Social threats, like exclusion or a loss of control, are reported to be stressful and anxiety provoking and elicit palliative responses. From the perspective of an overarching ‘inconsistency compensation approach’, the common response pattern to such threats relies on the violation of subjective beliefs and expectancies. This assumption has been supported in our previous event-related brain potential (ERP) studies: Here, the P3 response was reliably related to the processing of different social threats elicited in a virtual ball tossing game (cyberball). The expression of this ERP component was suitable to probe the level of expected participation and control, as well as the adjustment processes induced by expectancy violation.In the envisioned research project, this ERP marker will be used to test the specificity of the expectancy-based system: Are expectancies for threats to different social needs processed independently or are they integrated? Following the idea that distinct social experiences are integrated in a common cognitive system, we expect that the experience of exclusion will affect the subsequent processing of a loss of control, and vice versa. We will test our propositions in a series of four experiments based on the cyberball paradigm. ERP data and self-reports will reveal whether the exposure to a social threat will affect the processing of a subsequent different social threat: According to our hypothesis, the preceding experience of a social threat will reduce the level of expectancies in a following interaction. Further, we propose that the expression of this ‘pre-exposure’ effect depends on the self-assigned social power determining the a priori expectation for participation and control, respectively. We will include self-assigned social power in the experimental design by taking advantage of a verticality-power-link: As in our previous work, we will vary the spatial assignment of the participant’s avatar on the computer display systematically: In contrast to a superior position, an inferior position is associated with lower self-assigned social power. We expect that the pre-exposure effect induced by a social threat is enhanced in the inferior position group. The analysis of EEG data will not be restricted to an event-related approach, but will also consider systematic shifts in the frontal alpha asymmetry reflecting motivational changes in a participant. We suppose that recurring aversive signals affect the right-hemispheric activity (avoidance) and that this effect can be related to the dynamics of an adaptation of expectations. In sum, the project aims to integrate behavioral and electrophysiological responses to provide insight in our reactions to threats of different basic needs. We hypothesize that the processing of successive events interacts and that this interaction effect can be traced back to the activation of a common cognitive system which is involved in calibrating expectancies in social interactions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants