Sittenthaler Sandra, Steindl Christina, Jonas Eva
Division of Economic and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg , Salzburg, Austria.
Division of Social Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg , Salzburg, Austria.
Front Psychol. 2015 May 18;6:632. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00632. eCollection 2015.
Threats to our freedom are part of our daily social interactions. They are accompanied by an aversive state of motivational arousal, called reactance, which leads people to strive to reestablish their threatened freedom. This is especially the case if the threat seems to be illegitimate in nature. However, reactance theory suggests that reactance should also be aroused when people are exposed to legitimate freedom threats. In this article we first aim to show that both illegitimate and legitimate freedom threats evoke reactance. Second, we aim to extend past work on reactance by exploring the underlying process of experiencing a legitimate vs. an illegitimate restriction. In the current study (N= 57) participants were restricted in an illegitimate (unexpected and inappropriate) or legitimate (unexpected but appropriate) way, or were not restricted at all. We assessed participants' experience of reactance, their behavioral intentions to restore their freedom, their approach motivational states, as well as their physiological arousal (heart rate). Results indicated that when restricted in an illegitimate or a legitimate way, participants indicated the same amount of reactance as well as anger. However, when looking at people's physiological reactions, important differences between illegitimate and legitimate restrictions become apparent. Illegitimate restrictions led to an immediate arousal, whereas legitimate restrictions led to a time delayed arousal. This suggests that illegitimate restrictions lead to a sudden increase in aversive arousal. Legitimate restrictions, however, seem to be associated with a more cognitive process in which people first need to structure their thoughts and reflect upon the situation before getting into the feeling of reactance in a physiologically arousing sense. Moreover a mediation analysis could show that behavioral intentions to regain one's freedom result in positive and negative approach motivation. In sum we propose a combined dual-process and intertwined-process model explaining people's reactions to legitimate vs. illegitimate restrictions.
对我们自由的威胁是我们日常社会互动的一部分。它们伴随着一种厌恶的动机唤醒状态，称为反抗，这会导致人们努力重新确立他们受到威胁的自由。如果这种威胁在本质上似乎是不合理的，情况尤其如此。然而，反抗理论表明，当人们面临合理的自由威胁时，也会引发反抗。在本文中，我们首先旨在表明，不合理和合理的自由威胁都会引发反抗。其次，我们旨在通过探索经历合理与不合理限制的潜在过程来扩展以往关于反抗的研究。在当前的研究（N = 57）中，参与者受到不合理（意外且不适当）或合理（意外但适当）的限制，或者根本没有受到限制。我们评估了参与者的反抗体验、恢复自由的行为意图、接近动机状态以及他们的生理唤醒（心率）。结果表明，当受到不合理或合理的限制时，参与者表现出相同程度的反抗以及愤怒。然而，当观察人们的生理反应时，不合理和合理限制之间的重要差异就变得明显了。不合理的限制导致立即唤醒，而合理的限制导致延迟唤醒。这表明不合理的限制会导致厌恶唤醒的突然增加。然而，合理的限制似乎与一个更具认知性的过程相关，在这个过程中，人们首先需要整理自己的想法并思考情况，然后才会在生理唤醒的意义上产生反抗的感觉。此外，中介分析可以表明，恢复自由的行为意图会导致积极和消极的接近动机。总之，我们提出了一个结合了双过程和交织过程的模型，来解释人们对合理与不合理限制的反应。
