BEING THREATENED AND BEING A THREAT CAN INCREASE RELIANCE ON THOUGHTS: A Self-Validation Approach

The psychological impacts of threats are very broad. The chapters in this volume document how threats can influence a wide range of cognitive, affective, behavioral, and motivational responses. In this chapter, we focus on how threats can influence metacognition, or a person’s thoughts about their thoughts. Specifically, this chapter describes recent research on self-validation-a metacognitive process that determines whether people rely on their thoughts. We propose that people can come to rely on their thoughts as a psychological defense against all kinds of threats, including threats to personal security.