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Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat

Humans are better at integrating desirable information into their beliefs than undesirable information. This asymmetry poses an evolutionary puzzle, as it can lead to an underestimation of risk and thus failure to take precautionary action. Here, we suggest a mechanism that can speak to this conundr...

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Autores principales: Garrett, Neil, González-Garzón, Ana María, Foulkes, Lucy, Levita, Liat, Sharot, Tali
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Society for Neuroscience 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6125815/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30082420
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0716-18.2018
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author Garrett, Neil
González-Garzón, Ana María
Foulkes, Lucy
Levita, Liat
Sharot, Tali
author_facet Garrett, Neil
González-Garzón, Ana María
Foulkes, Lucy
Levita, Liat
Sharot, Tali
author_sort Garrett, Neil
collection PubMed
description Humans are better at integrating desirable information into their beliefs than undesirable information. This asymmetry poses an evolutionary puzzle, as it can lead to an underestimation of risk and thus failure to take precautionary action. Here, we suggest a mechanism that can speak to this conundrum. In particular, we show that the bias vanishes in response to perceived threat in the environment. We report that an improvement in participants' tendency to incorporate bad news into their beliefs is associated with physiological arousal in response to threat indexed by galvanic skin response and self-reported anxiety. This pattern of results was observed in a controlled laboratory setting (Experiment I), where perceived threat was manipulated, and in firefighters on duty (Experiment II), where it naturally varied. Such flexibility in how individuals integrate information may enhance the likelihood of responding to warnings with caution in environments rife with threat, while maintaining a positivity bias otherwise, a strategy that can increase well-being. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The human tendency to be overly optimistic has mystified scholars and lay people for decades: How could biased beliefs have been selected over unbiased beliefs? Scholars have suggested that although the optimism bias can lead to negative outcomes, including financial collapse and war, it can also facilitate health and productivity. Here, we demonstrate that a mechanism generating the optimism bias, namely asymmetric information integration, evaporates under threat. Such flexibility could result in enhanced caution in dangerous environments while supporting an optimism bias otherwise, potentially increasing well-being.
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spelling pubmed-61258152018-09-11 Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat Garrett, Neil González-Garzón, Ana María Foulkes, Lucy Levita, Liat Sharot, Tali J Neurosci Research Articles Humans are better at integrating desirable information into their beliefs than undesirable information. This asymmetry poses an evolutionary puzzle, as it can lead to an underestimation of risk and thus failure to take precautionary action. Here, we suggest a mechanism that can speak to this conundrum. In particular, we show that the bias vanishes in response to perceived threat in the environment. We report that an improvement in participants' tendency to incorporate bad news into their beliefs is associated with physiological arousal in response to threat indexed by galvanic skin response and self-reported anxiety. This pattern of results was observed in a controlled laboratory setting (Experiment I), where perceived threat was manipulated, and in firefighters on duty (Experiment II), where it naturally varied. Such flexibility in how individuals integrate information may enhance the likelihood of responding to warnings with caution in environments rife with threat, while maintaining a positivity bias otherwise, a strategy that can increase well-being. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The human tendency to be overly optimistic has mystified scholars and lay people for decades: How could biased beliefs have been selected over unbiased beliefs? Scholars have suggested that although the optimism bias can lead to negative outcomes, including financial collapse and war, it can also facilitate health and productivity. Here, we demonstrate that a mechanism generating the optimism bias, namely asymmetric information integration, evaporates under threat. Such flexibility could result in enhanced caution in dangerous environments while supporting an optimism bias otherwise, potentially increasing well-being. Society for Neuroscience 2018-09-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6125815/ /pubmed/30082420 http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0716-18.2018 Text en Copyright © 2018 Garrett et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Garrett, Neil
González-Garzón, Ana María
Foulkes, Lucy
Levita, Liat
Sharot, Tali
Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat
title Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat
title_full Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat
title_fullStr Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat
title_full_unstemmed Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat
title_short Updating Beliefs under Perceived Threat
title_sort updating beliefs under perceived threat
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6125815/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30082420
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0716-18.2018
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