Why it matters if there's a flickering light in the court room

Aspects of the environment that indicate danger - from flashing lights to a mere exclamation mark - lead us to make faster and more extreme judgements about fairness.

Kees van den Bos and colleagues say this happens because when we sense a threat, and what they call the 'human alarm system' is activated, we tend to form faster and more extreme reactions, with justice-related decisions being no exception.

In one experiment, university students stared either at an exclamation mark for one minute, or at a line with a dot above it - the latter serving as a control condition. Next the participants played a computer-based task with what they thought was another participant, but was really just a computer programme. Afterwards, some participants were asked how lottery tickets - a reward for taking part - should be shared between themselves and their playing 'partner', based on their performances. The remaining participants were told the lottery tickets would be distributed without seeking their opinion. Finally, the participants were asked to indicate how fair this system of ticket allocation was.

Amazingly, the mere act of staring at an exclamation mark significantly affected the participants' reactions. The difference in fairness judgments between those who'd been given a say and those who hadn't was greater among the participants who'd previously stared at an exclamation mark than among the control participants - in other words their judgments were more extreme (those who'd been given a say responded more positively, those who hadn't, responded more negatively, relative to the control participants who had and hadn't been given a say).

Another experiment asked dozens of shoppers on the streets of Amersfoot in the Netherlands to imagine a scenario in which their colleague had either received the same or a larger bonus than they had. Half the shoppers were asked near to a flashing road-work light - their subsequent judgements on the fairness of the bonus allocation were more extreme than those asked with the light switched off.

The researchers concluded it is now up to future research to test the real-world applications of these findings. "For example, future research might assess how people react to fair and unfair treatment by their management, when the business context may make the human alarm system more vs. less active," they said.
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VANDENBOS, K., HAM, J., LIND, E., SIMONIS, M., VANESSEN, W., RIJPKEMA, M. (2008). Justice and the human alarm system: The impact of exclamation points and flashing lights on the justice judgment process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(2), 201-219. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.03.001

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Existential angst can deter women from checking their breasts

American statistics show that breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women, and yet only a third of women regularly check their breasts for signs of the disease*.

Now research by Jamie Goldenberg and colleagues suggests existential angst could be a key factor that is putting women off self-checking.

In a morbid context, being reminded that we're made of flesh and bone, just like other animals, can exacerbate existential angst. In an initial study, Goldenberg's team showed that female university students who read an essay about the similarity of animals and humans, and who were asked to think about their own mortality, were subsequently less likely than a control group of students (who imagined a painful dentist visit) to say they planned to check their breasts.

Another experiment timed how long women checked their breasts for after they either read an essay about the similarity of animals and humans, or about the uniqueness of humans. There was a trend for the group who read about the similarity of animals and humans to spend less time self-checking.

There was a further twist to this last experiment. Earlier on, the women had been asked to taste a new proto-type health drink, with half of them told it was supposed to be calming and the other half told it was an energy drink, which may cause nervousness.

Among the women who read the essay about the similarity of humans and animals, and who were therefore expected to experience existential angst, only those who had drunk the calming drink spent a reduced amount of time checking their breasts. The researchers said this is because whereas all these women were presumably feeling uncomfortable, thanks to existential angst, those who'd tasted the energy drink were able to attribute their discomfort to the anticipated nervous effect of the energy drink, thus leading them to persevere longer with their self-checking.

"Applied health workers only stand to gain by considering whether interventions and instructional materials can be delivered in ways that reduce the likelihood of casting breast self-examination in a creaturely light [i.e in ways that don't remind women of their mortality]," the researchers concluded.
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GOLDENBERG, J., ARNDT, J., HART, J., ROUTLEDGE, C. (2008). Uncovering an existential barrier to breast self-exam behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(2), 260-274. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.05.002

* In the UK, the NHS encourages breast awareness rather than routine self-examination.

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