Sizing up the threat: The envisioned physical formidability of terrorists tracks their leadersâ€TM failures and successes

Sizing up the threat: the envisioned physical formidability of terrorists tracks their leaders' failures and successes.

Victory in modern intergroup conflict derives from complex factors, including weaponry, economic resources, tactical outcomes, and leadership. We hypothesize that the mind summarizes such factors into simple metaphorical representations of physical size and strength, concrete dimensions that have determined the outcome of combat throughout both ontogenetic and phylogenetic experience. This mode...

Sizing Up Helen* Nonviolent Physical Risk-Taking Enhances the Envisioned Bodily Formidability of Women

With God on our side :

A University of California author or department has made this article openly available. Thanks to the Academic Senate's Open Access Policy, a great many UC-authored scholarly publications will now be freely available on this site. Let us know how this access is important for you. We want to hear your story! Abstract: The imagined support of benevolent supernatural agents attenuates anxiety and ...

With God on our side: Religious primes reduce the envisioned physical formidability of a menacing adversary.

The imagined support of benevolent supernatural agents attenuates anxiety and risk perception. Here, we extend these findings to judgments of the threat posed by a potentially violent adversary. Conceptual representations of bodily size and strength summarize factors that determine the relative threat posed by foes. The proximity of allies moderates the envisioned physical formidability of adve...

Nonviolent Physical Risk-taking Enhances the Envisioned Bodily Formidability of Women

Men are more prone than women to both commit physical violence and engage in nonviolent activities entailing the risk of injury or death. The Crazy Bastard Hypothesis (FESSLER et al. 2014a) addresses this conjunction, arguing that nonviolent physical risk-taking communicates information about the actor’s agonistic formidability, as individuals who are indifferent to the possibility of harm are ...