But the good news is that these cognitive biases and behavioral changes can be reversed if one becomes cognizant of their existence and makes a conscious effort.
The human brain is a statistical machine that must constantly be making judgments and predictions based on beliefs, feelings, and past experiences. Trump’s fear mongering and fiery rhetoric is designed to heighten emotions and alter beliefs, offsetting this fine-tuned and calibrated system. If there’s one thing that Trump understands, it’s how to benefit politically from manufacturing fear and division. He may only be following his gut instincts, but it’s strategic psychological manipulation nonetheless.
For the right, he fuels their fears about minorities and dissimilar others, calling Hispanic immigrants “murderers and rapists,” and stating in blanket-fashion that “Islam hates us.”
His demonization of the “liberal media” and the Obama administration has transformed many right-wingers into full-fledged conspiracy theorists and for the left, President Trump is the fear.
Trump’s policies and willingness to please his most extreme supporters threatens the rights of gays, transgender folk, and women across the country. The only thing liberals might fear worse than Trump himself is the sentiment he brings out in his supporters, which has already proved deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia.
So how is this heightened collective anxiety affecting us, exactly?
What measurable effects does it have on our cognition and behavior?
Mortality salience increases tribalism and aggression toward out-group members.
Hundreds of studies in peer-reviewed journals have shown that when people are reminded of their mortality or exposed to a perceived existential threat — in other words, mortality is made salient, the result is a clear and predictable change in our attitudes and behavior toward others. Specifically, stimuli or events that conjure up thoughts about death cause people to cling more strongly to their cultural worldviews, increasing their support for those who share their national, ethnic, or political identity, and increasing their intolerance and aggression toward those who do not. According to Terror Management Theory, this happens because cultural worldviews — like religions, political ideologies, and national identities — help curb existential anxiety by instilling life with some form of meaning and value. Essentially, intense anxiety over a perceived threat to one’s well-being promotes tribalism, and no one is immune to it.
More evidence for this effect comes from a psychology study that found that making mortality salient increased support for extreme military interventions by American forces that could kill thousands of civilians overseas, an effect that was present only in conservatives.
By constantly emphasizing existential threat, Trump fuels the fears of Americans who will bolster their support for him in an attempt to feel safer. While this strategy keeps his supporters energized and loyal, the whole country suffers from the prejudice, aggression, and division it creates.
Mortality salience can cause centrists and moderate liberals to shift their voting towards the right, and it can also cause liberals to be pushed further to the left.
Since mortality salience fosters aggression towards those with opposing cultural worldviews, the perceived threat posed by Trump and his supporters has shifted many liberals towards more extreme positions than would be normally expected. In accordance with this concept, America has seen the rise of the militant left-wing group known as Antifa, whose tactics have progressively grown more violent towards the alt-right and neo-Nazis in a number of recent real-world confrontations.
Liberals who fear the nationalist surge the nation is witnessing become less tolerant of those they see as supporting Trump and his views towards immigrants, and more sympathetic towards the violent antics of Antifa because they are seen as well-intentioned, despite the fact that violence will ultimately be counterproductive to the liberal cause. Additionally, due to the worldview bolstering effects of existential fear and anxiety, liberals who feel threatened ideologically will tend to enforce their left-wing norms more than usual. While this might seem like a positive thing on the surface, given liberal ideals, a recent study has shown that the over-enforcement of PC norms actually serves to increase support for Donald Trump.
First, we must become acutely aware of the polarizing effect of Donald Trump’s presidency on both sides of the political aisle. We must openly acknowledge that the anxiety and fear created by Trump is pushing us all to our extremes, leading to tribal behavior and biases that can cloud our rational judgment.
Don’t just delete those friends on social media who have opposing political opinions, no matter how much you may despise some of those beliefs. We must engage each other in rational discourse, and we must strive to see the legitimate points made by all sides, regardless of the abundance of illogical ones. And throughout this engagement process, we must stay calm and collected, as aggression only makes the division worse by increasing mortality salience. While this idea might seem futile to many liberals who have long given up on trying to talk sense into Trump supporters, we must remember that trying to heal the division is our only option. Simply letting it get worse will only lead to further chaos in America, and could contribute to another four years of this administration.
When that happens, the moral high ground is lost.
As satisfying as it might be to watch a neo-Nazi like Richard Spencer get punched in the face, it is imperative that we remember that, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence,” a concept that is supported by the results of Terror Management Theory and mortality salience studies.
