Bruce Hutchison, Ph.D.
Retired Clinical – Counselling Psychologist
Author of Emotions Don’t Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil
I am writing this in a quest to lower the heated rhetoric between the group of people who are in opposition against vaccinations designed to protect us from covid-19 and the group of people who are in favor of the vaccinations. This is a heated topic, a “hot topic” in society, and such topics, in this heated time we are living in, have become plentiful these days. The way in which we are dealing with it seems to have contributed to the divisiveness which seems plentiful lately.
This is a crucial time. At times it seems it might be edging towards violence. Anti-vaccine protests plagued Liberal leader Justin Trudeau on the Canadian election campaign trail recently so that an evening rally was cancelled because of safety concerns. Anti-vaccine protesters have been harassing patrons and staff or a Toronto restaurateur. In the U.S., anti-vaccine groups and leaders have begun to organize politically at a very high level. As reported by Tara Haelle in The New York Times on August 31st 2021, in an article entitled This Is the Moment the Anti-Vaccine Movement Has Been Waiting For.
They have founded state political action committees, formed coalitions with other constituencies, and built a vast network that is now the foundation of vaccination opposition by conservative groups and legislators across the country. They have taken positions that medical decisions should be autonomous and private and, according to Haelle, have warped them in ways that have set back decades of public health advances. She doesn’t say how many decades, but that analogy, using the plural, when thinking is automatic, conjures the image for some of public health advances reverting back to the 80s, if not the 50s. That is because the comments are strong and contain emotional thinking. Many people revert to emotional thinking when they are desperate and seek power, although emotions don’t think. This type of thinking is ineffective and puts people on the defensive instead of changing minds.
This occurs largely because of emotional contagion, since emotions, even when implicitly stated in verbal comments, easily spreads through emotional contagion in many countries as tempers flare. Reactions can be quick and impulsive, sometimes defensive or aggressive. It produces world-wide turmoil. In third-world countries like Afghanistan and Haiti, and many other countries, like India and Pakistan, we see the effects of emotions as turmoil spreads. You can’t have turmoil without emotions.
Since emotions are powerful, they determine many actions, usually impulsive, dangerous actions causing harm, injuries and death. It is only when parties start to think that they realize the destruction and harm that has occurred, so that they don’t really get what they wanted. Just ask the people of Syria or Iraq if all is well now.
Many issues are divided into two camps. That causes divisiveness. It is not just the vaccination issues, but that is a current hot topic, and seems prolonged. In the ongoing debate between the anti-vaccination movement and the pro-vaccination people, many people are resisting the Covid-19 vaccine and refuse to get vaccinated. Many of the pro-vaccine people have been upset and emotional, to the point that the anti-vaxxers are getting called names. The emotions indicated by this use of slights seems to arise very quickly in the people who use them. This is common in both sides of a dispute when the public debates “hot topics” like this. When we as the public use emotions instead of reasonable thinking to discuss contentious issues, the discussion can easily become chaotic, and the result is turmoil. Yet here we are again, using emotional thinking on a hot button issue. We need a way to reason things out when “hot topics” hit us, otherwise turmoil occurs when contagious negative emotions spread through the population. We saw the result of that recently in the election campaign.
One important thing missing in this and in many other debates is an empathic focus on the psychological state of the vulnerable people who are the focus of much of the difficulty at the time. Name-calling comes from emotional thinking and tempts others to become angry and call others names in return. This emotional contagion produces what Jonathan Berman called in his recent article (We must face the anti-vax movement head on, Globe and Mail, August 14, 2021) partisan polarization. People get distrustful and angry and divide into camps when they feel under attack. Vaccine hesitancy and vaccination rates fall distinctly along political lines when people distrust experts and intellectuals. Emotions like distrust come as an effect of name-calling when people get angry at the those who are opposed to the vaccinations. Both sides are being misunderstood because of emotional thinking. Emotions don’t think but the mind can think reasonable and constructively. But when emotions get in the way and take over we see the angry protests that have occurred. It seems that the angry people are reacting to something, and it may be the attitude they see in the pro-vaccination people.
A myriad of questions has sprung up in the public about this issue. For example, some people ask in forums and letters to the editor if those who are anti-vaccination avoid doctors or hospitals if they have a serious illness or injury? They should if avoid doctors and hospitals if they do not trust the doctors, nurses and hospitals. Did they not take the measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations when they were younger? Probably. Did those vaccinations cause serious widespread damage? No. These are good, rational questions. We need rationality like this and not emotions. Recently, a young teen pointed out on Twitter that many people have died because of Covid-19, over 670,000 in the U.S., and over 4,700,000 world-wide, and vaccinations have killed very few, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html). The teen is then confused as to why people are against a vaccination that could have save their lives, when so many die from the disease and very few die from the vaccination. Indeed. The teen uses rational thinking, and the facts are correct. CDC reports rare reactions to the vaccination. Reactions such as anaphylaxis, thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), Guillain-Barre syndrome, myocarditis and pericarditis are rare after the vaccinations, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC states that 7,899 reports of death have occurred among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. This is a percentage of 0.0020%. If you have a .998% chance of winning a lottery, would you but the ticket? You should. I would. These are the same odds of living after you get a vaccination against covid-19.
There is usually some truth to any rumor or fear. That is true here. The CDC’s website says that “recent reports do indicate a plausible causal relationship between the J&J/Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine and TTS, a rare and serious adverse event—blood clots with low platelets—which has caused deaths”. They do not indicate any statistics but do state that this is a “rare and serious adverse event”. This substantiates that there is always a risk and uncertainty in life, and there are no guarantees that anyone reading this, including myself, will not be dead any minute, hour, day, week or month from now. But I have been giving this example for decades and am still alive, thanks to the doctors, nurses and hospitals who saved my life when I had prostate cancer, and to the many safe drivers out there who did not run into me.
Although taking an emotional approach to the argument is a losing approach, we can’t ask the anti-vaccination people to use reason because they won’t or can’t. The impetus for much of this back-and-forth debate is our emotional thinking, the anger and fear in both sides. The emotional approach causes turmoil and is prone to fail. The pro-vaccine people are angry at the anti-vaccine people because they feel they cause many risks to the population. The anti-vaccine people are angry at the pro-vaccine people because they feel disrespected. This anger is natural, but it does not work at solving problems.
Before I go on any further, let me state this article strives for emotional neutrality. Emotional language is avoided. I am not using terms like “anti-vaxxers” and “pro-vaxxers” because they are divisive, and divisiveness leads to conflict and sometimes violence. They are all people and need respect as fellow human beings exercising their right to freedom of speech.
Full disclosure reveals that I am double-vaccinated and am in favor of vaccinations. Vaccinations are safe and it is wise to accept them. They can save your life. When there are only two choices, opting out of the dilemma is not a decision one can make, as one has either been jabbed or not. There is no in-between, unless a person stops at one jab. That is not a wise decision because both vaccinations are necessary to ensure full protection, so one jab is really a choice to be unvaccinated. One’s life could be at stake, as could the lives of others in our lives who are close to us if we are unvaccinated. They could catch covid-19 and die. It has happened. More than once. We need to avoid divisiveness and respect all opinions if we truly respect free speech. Respecting an opinion does not mean we agree with it. It means we do not get angry at those with an opposite opinion. We need to think rationally and find better ways to handle our angry emotions about contentious topics.
At times like this, negative emotional contagion and social dysfunction rear their ugly heads. We label groups on either side, as “anti-vaxxers” and “pro-vaxxers” almost as if they are teams in a sports league duelling each other. Experts are thought of as radicals, Berman says, by those right-wing “populists” pushing the anti-vaccination movement. These people say the experts are pushing an agenda, possibly a government agenda, to control us. That may arouse our anger toward the populists in those who see the experts as distinguished scientists, epidemiologists and physicians. On one side are the right-wing populists, trying to silence the other side, those who support the experts, who are trying to weaken the populists to a point they will surrender. No one wants to show the other side empathy, for fear they will then be labelled as weakened and the other side will take advantage of this.
This is a divisive approach and needs to change for the betterment of society. Emotions get riled up and get out of control, and emotions don’t think. People don’t stop and think and predict what would happen if they act on the angry emotions. This is a common problem, when anger takes over and causes destructive actions. It is important to recognize the signs that you are angry and manage the anger. Iot is acceptable to feel angry, but handling it is what needs to be done. Control your words and say how you feel but in a rational way, without blaming others. Use phrases like “I am annoyed at you….” followed by a verb “when you act that way”, “when you say that,” etc. Invite them to say it in a different way, so that they may mean the same thing, for example, they could change their words from a derogatory label to a description of an action about what was said or done. We can be angry at an action a person did but getting angry at the person is disruptive and likely to make the person defensive, aggressive or withdrawn.
Many people mistake potential empathy toward anti-vaxxers as agreement with their cause, taking their side, when it is not necessarily the case. We can be empathetic and compassionate about someone’s pain without agreeing with them. We need to resist thinking that empathy for the other side equals support and agreement with the other side’s cause. It means we are attempting to understand their hesitation with compassion so we best approach it with a view to eventually arriving at a way for them to get vaccinated. Otherwise, resentments, polarization and isolation result.
It is crucial at times like this for society to understand the reasons why people are resisting the vaccine rather than be critical of them. We can’t work on something if we don’t understand its causes. It is acceptable to criticize the anti-vaccination decisions but calling them names, wackos, ignoramuses or uneducated, will drive them further away from agreeing to get vaccinated. How do you react if you are called an undesirable, derogatory name? Does it make you want to agree with the name-caller and acquiesce? Probably not. You probably try and fight back, dig your heels in, resist and rebel. That’s what they have been doing recently. Let’s stop the name calling against those who are against vaccinations if we are serious about them coming around to accept the vaccine. Let’s be empathic instead.
We are so accustomed to an “either-or” debate in our society, when there are many different spots along the continuum, that we are unaware that this “either-or” debate is what leads to divisiveness. When we put people into two camps, such as pro- or con-vaccinations, we add to the problem. It misses all the nuances, the positions in-between, the hesitations and the uncertainties of indecisive people, all of which need to be considered, instead of immediately assigning people to one side or another of the debate. This causes divisiveness alienation and demoralization, as well as contributing to family breakdown, loss of friendships, and partisan political polarization.
As a society we use emotions to handle problems, ineffectively. It is natural for the vaccinated people to feel angry at the unvaccinated. We instinctually defend ourselves when we are under attack. It is the fight-and-flight syndrome, controlled by quick emotional thinking. When we see the possibility of someone passing on a lethal disease to us, due to their sense of entitlement, it is natural for us to get very angry. A person who is the recipient of raw anger rarely decides to agree to what is being offered by the angry person, even if it is a life-saving vaccination.
There are better ways to manage our anger and better ways to approach the situation and those ways involve thinking and planning. We need to modulate and tone down our angry reactions so that we do not get destructive and add to the divisiveness. It must be scary to feel vulnerable to being controlled by an invisible body of experts, scientists and government officials, whether it is true or not. We have to remember that these people have probably had negative experiences in their lives. They are probably distrustful of those in authority. They may have had people in authority like property owners or bankers treating them or their parents poorly, when they were children, and being young, they may have developed a distrust of those in authority, or even distrust parent figures who have been neglectful or abusive. People who have lived their lives without trusting parents or relatives being kind, helpful, caring and protective, and instead experiencing abuse and neglect are very likely to be on guard as adults, especially when the sanctity of their bodies are involved. As well, some people can’t handle ambiguity. When they don’t know clearly what is in the vaccine, if they also have serious trust issues and feelings of insecurity, they are likely to doubt that there is a helpful ingredient in the vaccine. Perhaps they have never been genuinely helped in their life, or never recognized that they were, and may have been used to being tricked, being taken advantage of, abused or neglected, even when injured or sick. So their attitude is that people are not to be trusted. They may default to thinking that the vaccine is a negative thing in spite of the statistics. That is possibly their default position in life.
It is better to partner a vaccination with a genuinely positive event. In New York City some people in charge are combining vaccinations with block parties, fairs, churches, along with experts who are present to discuss concerns people bring, and then get vaccinated on the spot. Tara Smith, a public health professor at Kent State in the U.S. says that “We pretty quickly exhausted those who were easiest to reach and vaccinate (through these events).” “This next phase is more difficult, but I don’t think it’s impossible to continue to get more people vaccinated. We just have to get creative.”
Paying people to get vaccinated is not likely to help as it is liable to raise more cynicism in those who suspect some type of collusion or corruption is involved in the choice of who is paid to be vaccinated. Cynicism is toxic and deadly. Or people will expect to be paid to do a number of other things in the future, like taking the flu vaccine or giving blood. And they won’t get paid for that and will likely regress emotionally. But associating the vaccine with a friendly approach and a positive event, such as offering it at a sports event, or at a concert, or picnic in a park, with casually dressed young experts, who engage in supportive conversation, possibly with some training in a psychologically proven method such as motivational interviewing, is likely to do wonders. Then, as more and more people get vaccinated and people see that they are not suddenly infected with various demons they may have been concerned about, they will be more accepting of the vaccination. And herd immunity will eventually kick in.
According to an article by Matthew Hornsey, Emily Harris and Kelly Fielding published in the Journal Health Psychology in 2018, entitled The Psychological Roots of Anti-Vaccination Attitudes: A 24-Nation Investigation, there are four main reasons why people will not accept a vaccine. These reasons are: high conspiratorial thinking, high reactance to being told what to think, disgust reactions to blood, needles and hospitals, and holding strong individualistic and hierarchical values (believing that government is a problem). As well, in my experience as a clinical psychologist, quality of life and mental health issues are likely involved. We have to be patient and supportive to people with these issues while, at the same time, not accepting their fears as realistic. We can accept that they have a fear but not accept the content of the fear, and not acquiesce to their wishes. Instead we can patiently help them work though their fears.
Many people are afraid of needles, up to 25% of adults, according to the Canadian Psychological Association Fact sheets, (www.cpa.ca/psychologyfactsheets) because of anticipated pain from a very sharp object being inserted into one’s body, and so will not agree to get a needle. We have all heard about people who are afraid of needles. Needles don’t usually hurt, by the way. It is looking at them and thinking about them going into the skin that scares us, not the actual jab. It is safe. Sure, there could be a little pain, but that won’t last longer than a couple of seconds and won’t be excruciating. I have had many needles for injections and blood tests over my life and have had no problems other than very brief, bearable pain a small percentage of the time. Cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy can help. The CPA website offers Fact Sheets with many ways to cope with various psychological issues including needle pain and issues related to coping with covid-19.
People commonly also have issues with disgust, which can be evoked when we consider bodily fluids such as blood and sputum, as well as environmental issues such as dirt and filth. The emotion of disgust is very powerful. Disgust is pervasive and enduring. It seems to paralyze the ability to reason and may generalize and colour judgment through quick emotional thinking. Disgust overflows to the area of touching, poking, and contacting one’s skin, as well as the inner workings of the body. It may cause the person to reject the idea of injecting a substance from an external source; the person has a strong fear that they are injecting something harmful or disgusting into their body. This is the emotion of fear. Hence they ask not only if the needle is clean, but they are also more likely to ask, “What’s in the vaccine?” This overlaps with the distrust issue, as some people feel that the vaccine contains microchips, or will somehow infect a person’s DNA to genetically modify their body. They do not trust the individual giving the injection to be honest in their replies, so will regard answers as to its safety to be false. There is a fear of getting a vaccine not just because it is a trust issue but also because of disgust issues, and in giving control to someone else to put something foreign into our body without knowing its contents. This is an issue for those prone to distrusting authorities, and for having difficulty in accepting ambiguous, unknown (to them) entities. Let’s look at the facts. I have never in my 50 years of being a clinical psychologist or my 76 years of life come across anyone who complained that the many injections most of us take as children and even as adults has modified their bodies or their childrens’ bodies.
Then there are those who distrust government because they believe that the government wants to control its citizens and will do so by secretly controlling their DNA by putting secret ingredients into the vaccine. These people strongly dislike being told what to think. They do not realize, like most of us do, that what others are telling them to think is the same as they would think on the own anyway, in other words, be safe by living healthy. Instead they want to make their own decisions and take charge, in their way, by refusing the vaccination for reasons of their own, thinking that they will not allow themselves to get genetically programmed by the government. This is fearful, emotional, reactive thinking, similar to childlike thinking where fantasies are thought of as reality. This may indicate unfilled strong emotional needs. We know how powerful and popular this idea is from the abundance of superhero movies which portray a superhero in charge who helps people and conquers villains. The government is seen as a lesser power. These are popular movies which draw a large number of people who can, to some degree, understand the related emotions and fears portrayed and the need for control. The fantasy of an elaborate web of conspiracies is accepted as reality by those few amongst this type of audience whose mind has difficulty separating entertainment from reality. They have become overly emotional to the point of being confused, unrealistic, engrossed in fantasy and possibly even delusional, to the point that it negatively affects their own health decisions. This heightened emotionality is a casualty of the pandemic.
Conspiracy theories like this create a safe place for the person who feels vulnerable; they feel safer because through the theory they maintain their fantasy that they prevented someone from overpowering them by accepting the vaccine (if it secretly controlled their genetics). This is not logical, so the executive, conscious part of the mind in many people would realize this and overrule it, much as we deem our dreams fictional. But those with an emotional, fearful mind who entertain fantasies and also have strong individualistic, hierarchical values will often overrule the logical mind in a weak or hectic moment. They then feel powerful and since they feel our safety and survival are at stake, they prefer a conspiracy theory that they think, erroneously, saves us. In some people emotional thinking can override the power of their conscious mind when the emotions of fear, security and power flow at the height of the moment. This heightened emotion has been common in the pandemic, where millions of deaths have occurred around the world, stirring many fears and anxieties that at times overtake people’s thinking.
Finally there are those who may be passively or chronically depressed and suicidal, being ambivalent about life, having very few, if any rewarding experiences, living in chronic stress or unhappiness, having few supportive friends, and feeling that there is nothing to live for. In this case catching a fatal disease such as covid-19 would sadly and tragically be welcome. They do not want to prevent it by taking a needle. They are ignoring the sanctity of other individuals, because of a severely low mood and feelings of chronic unhappiness and despair, so they cannot realize that the vaccination may save others. Some such people may see life as full of misery for everyone. These people do not need further harsh judgments and rejection from the public, instead they need support.
Much of the reluctance to accept vaccinations relates to psychological, emotional perceptions which ae liable to be distorted. This article attempts to describe the root causes of vaccine rejection or hesitancy at a psychological level. Negative contagious emotions promote suspicious states of mind in those people who are susceptible to entertaining such thoughts. This reflects, at some level, the failure of government at provincial and federal levels to recognize the crucial importance of psychological health in the public, and how it can dominate the direction of events in society. It is not too late to associate the vaccinations with positive experiences with those people who have difficulty valuing life in one way or another. Such positive experiences is likely to give them reasons to value life.