RAPID: Threat Perception on the First Anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombings

2013年4月15日，两枚炸弹在波士顿马拉松终点线附近爆炸，造成3人死亡，250多人受伤。这场悲剧对许多生活在波士顿大都市区的人来说压力很大，即使是那些没有参加波士顿马拉松的人。社会心理学研究可以帮助我们了解经历这种类型的事件如何影响我们;例如，这些经历是否会影响我们对社会环境的感知和反应？ 在经历了这类事件后，我们是否认为世界更具威胁性？ PI及其同事先前的研究表明，在波士顿马拉松爆炸案发生后的几周内，人们在模糊的情况下看待威胁的倾向发生了变化。目前的研究将使用波士顿马拉松爆炸案一周年的背景下，以进一步研究这个问题;具体来说，PI将纵向研究围绕周年纪念的媒体报道如何改变人们对最初事件的低和高暴露如何感知潜在威胁。参与者将包括在原始事件发生时居住或工作在波士顿的人（高暴露组）和在原始事件发生时不住在该地区的人（低暴露组）。研究将在3个波进行：周年纪念前2个月（第1波）、周年纪念1个月内（第2波）和周年纪念后2个月（第3波）。在每一波中，参与者将被评估媒体对爆炸事件的报道，他们将完成一项威胁感知任务。在这个任务中，参与者看到一个人拿着一个物体对着背景场景很短的时间间隔。参与者必须迅速决定他们看到的人是否具有威胁性（例如，拿着枪）或无威胁（例如，拿着汽水罐或钱包）。研究人员假设，那些最初接触事件较多的人和那些接触媒体报道爆炸周年纪念日的人将表现出将非威胁误认为威胁的倾向，并降低区分威胁和非威胁的敏感性。这项研究将是第一个研究现实世界的大规模暴力的新闻报道对威胁感知随着时间的推移而变化的影响。这项研究将通过展示在恐怖主义事件周年纪念日之前和之后，随着媒体报道的增加，威胁感知如何变化，从而产生现实世界的应用影响。看到威胁的变化，例如当一个人拿着钱包时“看到”一个人拿着枪，可能对那些每天都需要威胁感知的工作产生严重的现实影响（例如，警察或军人）。这项工作还可以揭示高度唤起媒体报道恐怖主义事件周年纪念日的潜在有害现实世界后果，特别是对脆弱的个人（例如那些事件曝光率较高的人）。这里使用的个体差异方法也将帮助我们在媒体关注先前恐怖主义事件的背景下识别那些最有可能改变威胁感知的人。

On April 15, 2013, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring more than 250. This tragedy was stressful for many of those living in the Boston metropolitan area, even those not attending the Boston Marathon. Social psychological research can help us understand how experiencing this type of event can affect us; for example, do these experiences influence how we perceive and respond to our social environment? Do we see the world as more threatening after experiencing this type of event? Previous research conducted by the PI and colleagues demonstrate that in the weeks after the Boston Marathon bombing, people had an altered tendency to see threats in ambiguous situations. The current research will use the context of the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing to further examine this question; specifically, the PIs will longitudinally examine how media coverage surrounding the anniversary can change how people with low and high exposure to the initial event perceive potential threats. Participants will include people living or working in Boston at the time of the original event (high exposure group) and people not living in the area at the time of the original event (low exposure group). The study will be conducted at 3 waves: 2 months before the anniversary (Wave 1), within 1 month of the anniversary (Wave 2), and 2 months after (Wave 3) the anniversary. At each wave, participants' exposure to media coverage of the bombing will be assessed, and they will complete a threat perception task. In this task, participants view a person holding an object against a background scene for short intervals. Participants must quickly decide whether the person they see is threatening (e.g., holding a gun) or non-threatening (e.g., holding a soda can or wallet). The researchers hypothesize that those with more initial event exposure and those with more exposure to media coverage of the anniversary of the bombing will show a tendency to misidentify non-threats as threats, and decreased sensitivity to distinguishing threats from non-threats. This study will be the first to examine the effect of news coverage of real-world mass violence on changes in threat perception over time. This research will have real-world applied impacts by showing how threat perception changes before and after a terrorism event anniversary with heightened media coverage. Alterations in seeing threats, such as "seeing" a person holding a gun when they are holding a wallet, can have serious real-world implications for those working in jobs that require threat perception every day (e.g., police officers or military personnel). This work also could reveal potential detrimental real-world consequences of highly evocative media reporting of the anniversary of a terrorism event, particularly for vulnerable individuals (such as those with higher event exposure). The individual differences approach used here also will help us to identify those at highest risk for altered threat perception in the context of media attention to a prior terrorism event.