CURRENT POLITICAL THEATRICS FEED OFF EMOTIONAL CONTAGION

WaPo says that there is a growing strain of newbie Washington lawmakers in early 2021 who view legislating as a less important task than communications, largely ignoring the more traditional local media outlets where policy might be stated and debated.  One lawmaker, first elected in November, recently told lawmakers that he “built my staff around comms (communications) rather than legislation.” This focus has made him a regular on the news networks that emphasize theatrics, fear, hate and drama when they present the news.  

It seems that they are minimizing the importance of policy and legislation. Other lawmakers have also focused their energy on political theatrics that command attention on cable news and social media.  A lawmaker says that in the political environment in which they live, theatrics, division and hate are what elevates stars. They know that theatrics and emotions command attention because of their strength and power.

This is an illustration of how emotional contagion dominates politics these days. Theatrics depend on emotions, and emotions don’t think. The emotions of division, fear and hate dominate. These emotions spread through emotional contagion. There seems to be little in the way of thinking rationally. These emotions are contagious because they are appealing to other people who seem to automatically absorb them into their own psyche. When this happens the emotions dominate their own psyche. They are strong and leave the person no room to think critically about what they are feeling. One’s own emotions and feelings can change when people think seriously and analytically about them, but this doesn’t happen with these emotions in these people, likely because they are so appealing and alluring. When this happens, those emotions take right over and communicate with similar emotions in other people. They feed off the emotional contagion of each other; the emotions pull for similar emotions from others because they are like magnets. Someone else with a similar emotion just reacts without thinking and absorbs it. The emotions come together in commiseration. 

When emotions come together like this in people who have felt powerless and are suspicious, they leave room for conspiracies to start. Suspicion and cynicism are contagious feelings. Many people are cynical, because there is a lot of corruption. People who have felt powerless and feel victimized look for an enemy, and corrupt powerful people are marked as dominating them and robbing them of opportunity. So conspiracy ideas will grow, and grow, reinforced by the mutually satisfying feeling that grows with them and takes over the mind, focusing on concrete, simplistic thinking, leaving any reasoning far behind. When emotion dominates, it is difficult to discern between corruption, power, wealth and authority. Not all people in authority are corrupt. Not all wealthy people are dishonest. But people who believe in conspiracies have a hard time differentiating these aspects and instead lump them all together. These are people who group together and think emotionally and feel power because it is very satisfying to them. They feel like they have an answer and have identified an enemy for their problem. Often the perceived enemy when people think simplistically is people in authority. Hence we see the mob storm the capitol building. These are the results of the theatrics and drama in the current political environment. These are contagious emotions, in those with a sense of emotional unfulfillment in life, and likely result in a continuation of similar behavior.

Emotions only have simple messages, and they can be appealing to people with a shortage of emotional fulfillment. The messages seem absolute, but are incorrect. Being absolute and appealing in people who do not know or value critical thinking or systematic reasoning, they are easy to accept. For example, thinking, with a judgmental aspect, that “All people” with a certain characteristic, such as being overweight, or who belong to a certain outside group, such as a foreign country, have a negative characteristic, such as “lazy” or “stupid” or some other negative characteristic, as if they themselves are not, makes themselves seem better. Although this is incorrect, who can blame them emotionally? Most of us want to feel better. And many of us want to place ourselves in a top rung in a competitive society. And when emotional contagion is strong, and overrules logic and reason, the implicit emotion that lies within some people makes these attributions. The people who are conspiracists then feel powerful, reprieved, relieved of any blame or responsibility, and get support from others who think the same. These feelings and the support are reinforcing, and we know that reinforcement with emotional support will drive the behavior to continue and even increase. But unfortunately they are incorrect because they are missing the intricacies and subtleties of a situation. (For example some people in the outside group are not lazy or stupid when undertaking a task but they may be anxious about it or reluctant to do it, so they retreat). The emotions of feeling powerful for the conspiracist push reason out of the way, just because of their power.

Emotions of fear and hate are common in conspiracy theorists and take over, so that people in power are blamed and regarded as enemies who do secret things. This is impossible to prove or disprove, so is left untouched and appealing to those conspiracy theorists who are looking for a villain by simplistic, irrational thinking. However, because these are irrational theories seen as full of holes by the more perceptive people, their proponents may be prone to be dealt unfortunate hurdles in life. For example, friends and family who were formerly supportive may drift away; they may lose their jobs or their references and end up in trouble of one type or another.  

There is a grain of truth in the beliefs of many people who espouse conspiracy theories, since many people feel that there is too much concentrated power in too few of the population, like the top 1% of the wealthy. There has been a wider disparity between the rich and the poor, so that, for example, many people now die on the streets in some cities in the US and Canada. So we can understand the need of people to reach for power, which is more likely really the need to get honest respect and meaning from others in a competitive society. Hitting the bottom of the proverbial totem pole is not a position many people can endure.      

However, this doesn’t mean we support or side with the people who espouse conspiracy theories. It means we can understand their plight, and some people would like to assist in some way. To do so, when talking with them or offering them counselling, usually no amount of logic or reasoning will suffice. Sometimes it may help to expose their inefficiencies in living and decision-making in a calm, understanding, non-judgmental way. Talking calmly with them about what is going on, showing them respect as a human but not their beliefs, questioning supportively and gently if this is really the approach they want to take, questioning, without attacking them, if it really works for them, all of this may help. Helping them see a safer alternative while minimizing the perils of society may help. Supportive questioning, without challenging their viewpoint, by asking if their viewpoint really brings the truth from all sides, from all perspectives, into the forefront is important. It likely doesn’t and gentle, prodding questioning may bring this out. We need to see all perspectives to avoid tunnel vision and narrow thinking. This leaves space for reasoning to come in and temper the strength of fear and hate so that critical thinking and systematic reasoning can occur.

Rather than compete, the emotions and thoughts can then blend together instead and as a result produce meaningful, wise thinking.  It takes time, patience, understanding,  and an ability to accept the person as a human in an ongoing way while not accepting their belief and pointing out its fallacies in a supportive way, while showing respect for them as people. If the respect is not given, and shifts to blame, these people are really sensitive and will react to ridicule or condemnation in a way that will, in their mind, strengthen their conspiracy-laden position.  They are likely to see the situation as an “us vs. them” situation, where they will pull together and group with like-minded people and alienate themselves from the other person who they may have thought was calm and supportive but unfortunately then shifts to blaming and showing lack of respect. Instead, it is crucial to continue to show respect for them as a person, but not for their beliefs, but maybe seeing an ounce of truth in their belief, such as the grain of truth we discussed earlier, and relating how one dislikes it, remembering and pointing out calmly that there are still many ounces of falsity to their belief so that in totality it is probably false.     

This may need some time, much patience and repeated attempts at providing such counselling to assist them. Some people however, who espouse conspiracy theories may be psychiatrically disabled and delusional, being unable to think clearly without medical assistance through psychotropic medication. It may be helpful to recommend this step. Many people take psychotropic medication in the stressful times we live in and this should not be thought of as a weakness on anyone’s part.