Challenging "Resource Holding Potential"

Cesario et al. 2010

Study 1 revealed an individual’s ecology drives their cognitions when primed with an image they perceive as aggressive; if an individual has an ability to flee the situation, they will endorse flight action semantics, while an individual that does not have this ability will endorse fight action semantics. However, the following studies indicate that individuals might be prone to endorsing fight action semantics even when they have the option to endorse the opposite. The article though, does not provide a satisfactory operational definition of RHP, resource holding potential, which was implicated in studies 2a and 2b. What actually comprises an individual’s RHP? The article assesses RHP by asking the participant if they would engage in a confrontation, indicating on a Likert-type scale, with a picture of a black man (other races were presented, but were not interested). The authors then deem this satisfactory evidence of an individual that has a high RHP (willing to confront) or low RHP (unwilling to confront). This however, does not seem satisfactory, especially if they want to establish distancing behavior or closing in behavior as a source of individual differences as a result of subliminal priming. Hopefully, future research in this area would expand upon RHP; specifically, what information is accessed to determine an individual’s RHP. Does the individual’s immediate ecology contribute to this assessment, or is it the environment they grew up or reside in? Is this a self-assessment of perceived strength by the individual and their potential enemy? Or does RHP depend mostly on the size and strength of potential enemy? This would be an interesting avenue to explore, as it provides information to when an individual might be the exception: when a person would choose to fight instead of flight.