Often there are articles in the news, sometimes tragedies, which involve emotions, although there is no mention of emotions in the article. This is because emotions are invisible and the journalists do not report on what they do not see, or do not have proof of. So, people do not often think of how emotions are likely involved in creating the event the news reports.
Words and actions involved in words such as “foment”, “incite”, “provoke”, “instigate”, “inflame”, “invigorate”, “detonate”, and even “energize”, “inspire” and “motivate”, and phrases depicting actions, such as “whip up”, “stir up”, and “set off” all have an unrecognized and unstated underlying emotional component. Some of these are positive, but many of these are negative, involving an action that stimulates a negative emotion in someone else, resulting in that person undertaking a negative reaction which makes the news, because it results in an injury, attack or even a tragedy. And then those on the receiving end of the action can react with a quick counter-contagious reaction. This describes how the game of emotional ping-pong, often between two aggressive men, unaware of underlying emotions, can result in tragedy. Without these underlying emotions, there would be no event. This is why emotions are so crucial and why we need to learn how to manage our emotions and ensure they don’t trigger a reaction like in this tragic story:
This story in the news[1] involves invisible emotion related to inciting each other in a classical case of counter-contagion: Nowhere in the news story are emotions mentioned but most people can see that they were likely involved, as they are in most spontaneous, unplanned actions.
As you read it, note how your emotions may also become “inflamed” or “whipped up”. Handicaps and disabilities and rights of the disabled can do that. So might the related story of criminal behavior, use of guns and the court proceedings. You may feel like taking action of some sort as a result of your underlying emotions. In this case, ensure that you as the reader does not get involved in the emotional ping-pong game, as the contagion involved can affect your mood. What is required here is slow, reasoned-out thinking consistent with Kahnemans System 2 thinking, not the quick, fast thinking associated with System 1 thinking.[2]
Think it through before you decide whether you should take some action. Start by taking some deep breaths to keep yourself a little relaxed, so that you are more able to handle and manage your emotion. Don’t let yourself get enflamed. What kind of action would be appropriate? Is there any way that you could learn about how to regulate, manage or modify your emotions? You could search the phrase “emotional regulation” on Google. Could you think of possible negative or positive consequences that could occur because of an action your emotion might want you to take as you read this? How could you ensure your reaction would benefit others? You know that harming someone benefits no one. Could you write about it instead? How could this have been prevented? Summarize what you have gleaned from the article.
Here is the article:
Man guilty of shooting, paralyzing delivery driver over disability parking spot
A jury convicted a man this week for shooting a delivery driver in the back after the two argued over a disability parking spot outside a store in the U.S. Jurors on Monday found a 70-year-old man guilty of first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the shooting of the driver who was 21 at the time. The driver was paralyzed from the waist down.
The dispute began when a man had illegally parked his delivery van in a disability-accessible parking spot and was talking to the driver of a different delivery van. The 70-year-old man pulled out a cellphone to photograph the illegally parked delivery van, and posted the image to social media, according to court documents. This 70-year-old man, who was driving a car with a disabled permit placard, then confronted the delivery driver about the parking spot and attempted to photograph him. The younger man pushed the phone away and the older man punched him, charges say.
There was a tussle, and authorities said they ended up on the ground. The older man then pulled a gun from his waistband and shot the younger delivery driver, paralyzing him.
It is very likely that these two individuals felt underlying emotions and associated automatic thoughts related to competing and winning a battle and even defending their prestige and possibly their sense of competence, strength and even masculinity. For the disabled man, particularly if older and only recently disabled, they often feel shame and a threat to their masculinity because of their disability and the parking sticker. They may be angry about their dilemma, that is, their disability, an emotion often unrecognized. For the younger man, they often are in a hurry to deliver packages and please their employer. They may have a quota. Their thinking, on both parts, often involves tunnel vision, where they don’t think about anything else. It is possible that this all reflects toxic masculinity, where the need to be aggressive, competitive and win a battle reaches toxic proportions, toxic in the sense that others are harmed as a result of the interaction based on emotional factors related to what they think it means to be a man. Harm can also include emotional reactions, such as when Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) occurs as a result of a being involved in, or even witnessing an action.
This story is an example of how what I call the emotional ping-pong game[3] can become tragic. Contagious emotions often flow from contentious issues or controversies, and people who quickly react do so because emotions don’t think, they just get into the emotional ping-pong game. Back and forth. Ping, with an angry comment, or even worse, an angry reaction, and then pong, right back with an angrier comment, or angrier action, so ping, even angrier, and so on. But that doesn’t work. It often ends in tragedy, as happened here. Interrupt the flow. Stop! Emotions don’t think! Comments are bad enough, but when it involves actions, driven by underlying emotions being inflamed, tragedy can occur, involving both individuals, as one was made disabled and the other, already disabled, will likely be facing punishment, likely imprisonment.[4] Otherwise feelings get hurt, friendships end, people get hurt, their lives can end, and the damage is done as a person tries to one-up someone. Doing so obviously isn’t worth it.
Emotions don’t think, but your mind does, so use it. Take a break. Distract yourself. Take a deep breath to stop the back-and-forth emotional ping-pong game and think instead about whether one-upping is important. Emotional contagion is an automatic process. Purposely interrupting this flow will interrupt the automaticity of it. When real life situations happen, more people need to handle their emotions by using slow, reasoned thinking, not the quick, impulsive reactions common to a ping-pong game. Keep ping-pong for the real ping-pong game involving balls, not emotions, comments and actions.
[1] All identifying information has been omitted from this description, including the reference, as it may reveal the identity and location of this episode. It is kept anonymous so as not to provoke underlying emotional reactions toward any geographical region, location or individual.
[2] Kahneman, D. Thinking, Fast and Slow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirFrDVRBo4
[3] Hutchison, B. Emotions Don’t Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil. Crossfield Publishing 2021.
[4] Note how this example may inflame emotions in the reader. If that occurs, use it as a learning experience as to how emotions can automaticlly trigger a reaction, and how it could be stopped or managed instead. .