Threatening Information and Open Spaces (07-27-10)

Cesario and his colleagues have investigated how place design influences responses to threatening stimuli.  When exposed to images of potentially dangerous items in an enclosed space from which flight was impossible, participants in their study responded to the visuals with aggression.  When the same items were experienced in an open area, from which escape was possible, the responses were thoughts of “flight” instead of “fight.”  This finding suggests that threatening or stressful information should be presented in more open environments.

Joseph Cesario, Jason Plaks, Nao Hagiwara, Carlos Navarrete, and E. Higgins.  “The Ecology of Automaticity:  How Situational Contingencies Shape Action Semantics and Social Behavior.”  Psychological Science, in press.