Q: What is the recipe for defense? A: Threat, anxiety, and approach motivation

The anxiety-to-approach model of threat and defense suggests that psychological threat and defense reflects the operation of the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and the behavioral approach system (BAS). Based on this model, we hypothesized that threat should lead to defense especially when both the BIS and the BAS are highly active. We tested this hypothesis in three experimental studies. In Studies 1 (n = 125) and 2 (n = 158), students were told that their performance in a task was below (vs. in the range of) that of university graduates to induce academic uncertainty (vs. certainty). Those participants who exhibited high anxious affect (indicative of BIS activation) and high approach-related affect (indicative of BAS activation) in response to the academic uncertainty treatment became more ethnocentric. In Study 3, we used the openly accessible ManyLabs 4 data set, a multilab attempt to reproduce a classic mortality salience study. Students (n = 795) were either led to reflect about their own mortality or about watching television. Again, those who experienced high levels of both anxious and approach-related affect responded unfavorably to the author of an essay that criticized their country. These results support the idea that anxiety and approach motivation promote the emergence of psychological defense.