Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in New York City, terrorism has become one of the most distressing large‐scale societal threats. The March 22, 2016 terrorist attack in Brussels, the capital of Belgium undermined the collective sense of perceived security and social cohesion. The present research investigates Belgian civilians’ (N = 202) terrorist threat perception, personal emotions, and the role of perceived emotional synchrony in the construction of the perceived socioemotional climate in Belgium. The main purpose of the current study was to examine the role of perceived emotional synchrony emerging in collective gatherings as a regulatory mechanism improving the perceived socioemotional climate of the country. Additionally, the precise components (personal vs. collective) shaping the perceptions of terrorist threat were also examined. This study was conducted by a questionnaire during the collective gatherings in Brussels 1 week after the terrorist attack. The main results suggest that the terrorist threat has been perceived at the collective level rather than at the personal level. Furthermore, the perceived emotional synchrony with others mediated specifically the relationship between positive personal emotions and the perceived positive socioemotional climate in Belgium. Such findings point to the importance of considering the perceived emotional synchrony in order to provide a better understanding of lay people's psychosocial responses to terrorism and the subsequent construction of collective macro‐social phenomena in post‐terrorist contexts.

Terrorism is one of the most frightful large-scale societal threats nowadays. The January 7, 2015 Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris shattered French's sense of security. The present research investigates French citizen's (N = 160) terrorist threat perception (personal vs. collective), behavioral changes, social sharing of emotions and perceived socioemotional climate using the social stage model of collective coping with disasters (Pennebaker & Harber, 1993). This study was conducted by a questionnaire at three points of time (i.e., one week, one month and two month) following the attack. The results suggest that terrorist threat perception has not decreased across time at the personal level nor at the collective level. However, the extent of social sharing of emotions and the positive socioemotional climate decreased from the initial emergency stage to the subsequent adaptation stage. Such findings point to the importance of taking temporality into account to provide better understanding of lay people's responses to terrorism.Keywords: Terrorism; threat perception; behavioral changes; social sharing of emotion; socioemotional climate Le terrorisme est l'une des menaces sociétales à grande échelle les plus effroyables de nos jours. L'attaque terroriste de Charlie Hebdo du 7 janvier 2015 à Paris a ébranlé le sentiment de sécurité des Français. La présente recherche examine la perception de la menace terroriste (personnelle vs. collective), les changements comportementaux, le partage social des émotions et le climat socio-émotionnel perçu auprès des citoyens français (N = 160) en se basant sur le modèle des étapes sociales de coping collectif avec les catastrophes (Pennebaker & Harber, 1993). Cette étude a été conduite par questionnaire à trois points temporels (c.-à-d., une semaine, un mois et deux mois) après l'attaque. Les résultats suggèrent que la perception de la menace terroriste n'a pas diminué à travers le temps, ni au niveau personnel, ni au niveau collectif. Toutefois, l'ampleur du partage social des émotions et du climat socio-émotionnel positif perçu a diminué entre la phase initiale d'urgence et la phase ultérieur d'adaptation. Ces résultats soulignent l'importance de la prise en compte de la temporalité pour une meilleure compréhension des réponses des personnes au terrorisme.

Rumours are an ubiquitous feature of people's social life and one of the oldest topics in social psychology. Rumours, which tend to spread during crisis situations, allow people to mitigate unpleasant feelings and construct a meaning of the surrounding world. Rumour transmission has been associated with a number of specific individual (e.g., anxiety, personal involvement) and situational (e.g., ambiguity, uncertainty) characteristics and studied with the serial reproduction paradigm (Allport & Postman, 1947) in laboratory settings. The main criticism of rumour research has been its focus on primarily individual-level analyses in an attempt to explain a social phenomenon. Furthermore, the classic serial reproduction paradigm tends to omit the essential properties of interpersonal interactions and communication processes. Despite the recent and rapidly growing trend of social network methods in social and behavioural sciences, rumour research could also include a finer analysis of individuals' social characteristics and the related complexity of real-life communication processes.Therefore, the integration of a socially situated approach to rumour transmission might be especially relevant for rumour research and promising for the study of other social phenomena by extension.Rumours are a pervasive feature of people's social life. All people have been confronted by idle conversation in their surroundings that was later revealed to be largely or even completely false. Such inexact or false hearsay can relate to daily concerns or major societal issues. Rumours about the supposed perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City spread throughout the world within a few hours of the

The January 7, 2015 Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris shattered French civilians’ sense of security and also their sense of the surrounding world. This quasi-longitudinal study investigates the temporal dynamics of meaning-making and rumour-mongering processes of French civilians (N = 161) in a real-world, post-terrorist context. The present study was conducted via questionnaire at three points in time (i.e. one week, one month and two months) following the January 7, 2015 terrorist attack in Paris. In line with the social stage model of collective coping with disasters (Pennebaker & Harber, 1993), the main results suggest that participants’ coping process of searching for meaning decreased progressively over the two-month period. However, participants’ finding the presence of meaning as an outcome did not differ across time. Moreover, participants’ belief in rumours and official information was stable over the two-month period. Such findings point to the importance of considering the temporal perspective in order to provide a better understanding of laypeople’s symbolic responses to terrorism.

The radicalization of individuals and related commitment of acts of extreme violence, such as terrorism, have become one of the main societal concerns over the past years. Radicalization refers to a complex psychosocial process through which individuals adopt increasingly extreme convictions. The field of individuals’ deradicalization has attracted the interest of scholars and policymakers in recent years, and establishment of actual deradicalization programs has involved various components. The main aim of the current article is to propose an innovative methodological component for deradicalization programs based on immersive virtual reality (VR) technology. Accordingly, the development of the methodological implementation is primarily grounded in the emergent research field of intergroup conflict resolution and perspective-taking that employs VR technology-based experiments. Although, VR-based intervention does not provide a perfect answer to all of the challenges related to individuals’ deradicalization from extremism, it offers an interesting perspective to address certain relevant issues in the field.

This commentary focuses on affective structures and the main adaptive functions of shared narratives to fill the gaps of the Conviction Narrative Theory. The transmission of narratives among individuals in highly uncertain situations is irrevocably tainted by affects and anchored in collective memory. Narratives have important evolutionary functions for human beings under threat and act as the social glue that creates and strengthens social bonds among individuals.

La crise du Covid-19 que nous traversons nous place face à l’ennemi invisible qui contraint notre relation aux autres : ce sont tous nos repères, toutes nos valeurs qui semblent bouleversés. Pourtant, ce virus invisible est en permanence raconté, par les médias, par les pouvoirs publics. Ces récits ont ceci de commun : ils positionnent le virus dans une fonction actantielle très claire, celle de l’ennemi à combattre, entraînant avec lui la constitution d’armées distinctes avec une segmentation de la population très marquée : ceux qui doivent agir pour lutter et tenter de maintenir l’équilibre économique ; les aînés contraints à l’isolement ; les jeunes, stigmatisés car vecteur puissant du virus. Pourtant, la gestion de cette crise nécessite au contraire de renforcer les liens, de réaffirmer le vivre ensemble et le sens du collectif en sortant de ces segmentations par l’âge et en mettant en lumière les émotions et les valeurs humaines communes aux différentes générations.Une première étude faite auprès des jeunes et des seniors montre un panel d’émotions (tristesse, colère, anxiété), de valeurs humaines universelles (sécurité, bienveillance, universalisme) indiquant le besoin de vivre ensemble, avec notamment le mal-être associé à l’isolement social. Sur les fondements analytiques de cette étude, le projet CoviZion se propose de construire une approche méthodologique novatrice permettant de révéler le socle intergénérationnel commun sur lequel les pouvoirs publics, les institutions, les relais médiatiques pourraient s’appuyer pour engager une communication de crise orientée sur les émotions et les valeurs humaines communes et non sur les catégories d’âge.

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