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While I am quite familiar with the many examples of its use, I am more interested in how to combat it in our current context. I would also be interested in related psych studies pertaining to memory retention of emotionally stressful stimuli if anyone has come across any such material.
I don't have any of my psych books handy, but I think in reference to this question you should look at psych studies on conditioning.
The information you first posted about memory retention and trauma also involve conditioning. If you use fear to invoke a response, even in a traumatic situation, the more often you use the stimulus, the less powerful the response becomes. There have been studies and papers on the stimulus in question, and whether it is the perceived threat, or the uniqueness of the threat that has the most impact on memory retention. I don't know if any studies have been conclusive, but it raises the question if whether traumatic memories can be made less stressful if new memories can be created that don't evoke fear but are strikingly unique. If a person has a large number of such unique memories, will the traumatic fearful memory be recalled less often, and with less stress?
The reason I say this is because you see this kind of strategy in some politics and also in entertainment venues. An actor involved in a negative event, such as a racial slur, then engaging in a particularly silly event, something unique. You cannot erase the negative event from public memory, but if the second event is unique enough it can make as deep an impression, and that can lessen the negativity associated with the first event.
In politics, if your candidate is waging a fear-based campaign, dismissing those fears in a rational manner will not remove the emotional imprint on people's minds created by the fear in the first place. Sometimes, the better strategy is not to over-focus on arguing the fears being played upon by the opponent. Address them, and let it go. I think the better strategy tends to be creating unique venues that stress your positive attributes, differentiating yourself from your opponent. Create deep positive impressions in people's psyches by making those impressions distinctive. Create several different unique impressions. And the negative imprints become less powerful.
I don't have any of my psych books handy, but I think in reference to this question you should look at psych studies on conditioning.
The information you first posted about memory retention and trauma also involve conditioning. If you use fear to invoke a response, even in a traumatic situation, the more often you use the stimulus, the less powerful the response becomes. There have been studies and papers on the stimulus in question, and whether it is the perceived threat, or the uniqueness of the threat that has the most impact on memory retention. I don't know if any studies have been conclusive, but it raises the question if whether traumatic memories can be made less stressful if new memories can be created that don't evoke fear but are strikingly unique. If a person has a large number of such unique memories, will the traumatic fearful memory be recalled less often, and with less stress?
The reason I say this is because you see this kind of strategy in some politics and also in entertainment venues. An actor involved in a negative event, such as a racial slur, then engaging in a particularly silly event, something unique. You cannot erase the negative event from public memory, but if the second event is unique enough it can make as deep an impression, and that can lessen the negativity associated with the first event.
In politics, if your candidate is waging a fear-based campaign, dismissing those fears in a rational manner will not remove the emotional imprint on people's minds created by the fear in the first place. Sometimes, the better strategy is not to over-focus on arguing the fears being played upon by the opponent. Address them, and let it go. I think the better strategy tends to be creating unique venues that stress your positive attributes, differentiating yourself from your opponent. Create deep positive impressions in people's psyches by making those impressions distinctive. Create several different unique impressions. And the negative imprints become less powerful.
I might argue that in order to be effective, you would then have to overcome previous conditioning that is often born in fear. The deep rooted nature of fear in the human mind is indeed powerful and if I recall a paper that described the two most notable pathways to memory. One based in emotion and in this case fear, and the other being reason and analysis.
If we step into a street and notice a car coming, then obviously we don't wish to stand there and analyze, we need to react and it is this fear based reaction that is paramount to human survival. Now if we condition a human mind through the use of fear, then as you pointed out, the effects of the fear may be diminished, but reaction and response doesn't necessarily diminish.
In a political example lets pick something like the fear that Bush would start a global war or that Obama is a Muslim bent on the destruction of the US. Now most reasonable people will dismiss these kinds of claims, but when they are regurgitated repeatedly, they then become a reactionary talking point. Now I don't know if people actually believe this stuff themselves or if they are merely using these sound bytes as political jabs, I hope the latter. Yet the old saying that an oft repeated untruth, one will come to believe it themselves, remains in my mind.
I might even argue that this type of fear based conditioning will result in some a level of hysteria and unbalanced action.
I might argue that in order to be effective, you would then have to overcome previous conditioning that is often born in fear. The deep rooted nature of fear in the human mind is indeed powerful and if I recall a paper that described the two most notable pathways to memory. One based in emotion and in this case fear, and the other being reason and analysis.
If we step into a street and notice a car coming, then obviously we don't wish to stand there and analyze, we need to react and it is this fear based reaction that is paramount to human survival. Now if we condition a human mind through the use of fear, then as you pointed out, the effects of the fear may be diminished, but reaction and response doesn't necessarily diminish.
In a political example lets pick something like the fear that Bush would start a global war or that Obama is a Muslim bent on the destruction of the US. Now most reasonable people will dismiss these kinds of claims, but when they are regurgitated repeatedly, they then become a reactionary talking point. Now I don't know if people actually believe this stuff themselves or if they are merely using these sound bytes as political jabs, I hope the latter. Yet the old saying that an oft repeated untruth, one will come to believe it themselves, remains in my mind.
I might even argue that this type of fear based conditioning will result in some a level of hysteria and unbalanced action.
I think though, that fear-based politics has several weaknesses. The first is what you've described above, that often the fears fade in the face of facts and reason. You bring up the strategy of repetition, which is a way propaganda is often given credibility. If you repeat it enough, people begin to believe it. But this is also a weakness with fear-based politics. Because as a stimulus to get people to act, intermittent stimulus is much more effective than regular, repetitious stimulus. If you repeat it enough, you might make the claim more credible, but you also make the fear less intense, which means that you have to expand the fear by making ever-wilder claims to support the fear, which make you lose credence.
The other problem I see is that fear-based politics don't have much in the way of pay-off. Fear-based politics are most often not a spur to do something active, but a spur to resist change, to keep the status quo. The stimuli that are most effective are the stimuli that, after the subject performs the desired behavior, the subject receives a tangible reward, a reward they value enough that they will subsequently repeat the behavior when requested to do so in the future, when being stimulated to do so. If fear-based politics doesn't offer tangible rewards, then eventually the fear-inducing stimuli doesn't become as effective. There has to be an establishment of a credible threat to, in effect, refresh the fear, because otherwise it becomes an empty threat. So the threat has to be re-established again and again and again. It's a lot of work. It takes a lot of energy to maintain a mob mentality that endures over time.
I tend to think the reason fear based conditioning works so well in the political realm is that the subject of the fear is a changing goal post.
In recent history there was fear of the Huns and the Japanese and much of the events surrounding WWII are still fresh in my mind as it is the first notable use of modern propaganda and fear as a means to control populations.
Then there was fear that the red commies would pour out of the stepp and end the democratic model we fought so hard to promote. Variations of this theme started post WWII and continued up until Vietnam and the fall of the Soviet Union. Then the goal post shifted to terrorism. From terrorism you had your domestic type and ascension of the term, Islamo-fascism.
As I pointed out with examples of Bush and Obama and how people used fear to attempt to guide public sentiment. It does work until repetition causes it to lose its grip, then like greater known examples, the goal posts shift. In the case of Obama, it has went from the birth certificate topic, to his secret Muslim nature, to socialist, to fascist, and will probably end up with Satan at some point. However, fear is still a salient means of motivation in oppositional positions and I remember Obama using fear when he said that if he didn't get bail out money the economy would collapse. Maybe this is true, maybe not, but again, political figures, the media, and most notably people use and almost live off fear alone.
While reason may combat the emotional use of fear, the problem I see with this today is that too many people are incapable of using reason. It requires effort and sometimes results in being wrong in our assumptions and the fear of being seen as wrong is strong enough to defend notions into the dirt.
One common theme I often go on about is that children in our schools today are taught what to think instead of how to think, and it has been this way for some time. I say this because I have asked people, if you were king, what would you rather govern over. A nation of apathetic, poorly educated, disengaged people who would rather watch football or a nation of people who were aware, thought in a critical manner, were engaged and reasonable educated. These things all combat fear which is why I think we are so reluctant as a nation to teach such skills.
I tend to think the reason fear based conditioning works so well in the political realm is that the subject of the fear is a changing goal post.
In recent history there was fear of the Huns and the Japanese and much of the events surrounding WWII are still fresh in my mind as it is the first notable use of modern propaganda and fear as a means to control populations.
Then there was fear that the red commies would pour out of the stepp and end the democratic model we fought so hard to promote. Variations of this theme started post WWII and continued up until Vietnam and the fall of the Soviet Union. Then the goal post shifted to terrorism. From terrorism you had your domestic type and ascension of the term, Islamo-fascism.
As I pointed out with examples of Bush and Obama and how people used fear to attempt to guide public sentiment. It does work until repetition causes it to lose its grip, then like greater known examples, the goal posts shift. In the case of Obama, it has went from the birth certificate topic, to his secret Muslim nature, to socialist, to fascist, and will probably end up with Satan at some point. However, fear is still a salient means of motivation in oppositional positions and I remember Obama using fear when he said that if he didn't get bail out money the economy would collapse. Maybe this is true, maybe not, but again, political figures, the media, and most notably people use and almost live off fear alone.
While reason may combat the emotional use of fear, the problem I see with this today is that too many people are incapable of using reason. It requires effort and sometimes results in being wrong in our assumptions and the fear of being seen as wrong is strong enough to defend notions into the dirt.
One common theme I often go on about is that children in our schools today are taught what to think instead of how to think, and it has been this way for some time. I say this because I have asked people, if you were king, what would you rather govern over. A nation of apathetic, poorly educated, disengaged people who would rather watch football or a nation of people who were aware, thought in a critical manner, were engaged and reasonable educated. These things all combat fear which is why I think we are so reluctant as a nation to teach such skills.
I wonder if the pay-off for people who subject themselves to fear-based politics is validation???
At least recently, it seems like the topics you cited in the fear-based campaigns against Obama have sustained themselves because they have a forum where they can validate each other.
I wonder if the pay-off for people who subject themselves to fear-based politics is validation???
At least recently, it seems like the topics you cited in the fear-based campaigns against Obama have sustained themselves because they have a forum where they can validate each other.
I think this may be part of that double edged sword that is the rise of the internet as an interactive medium for the masses. If our current situation were taking place in say, 1980, I suspect that national sentiment would be markedly different. Reason being is that during this period of time information was transmitted via print and television and there was still a kernel of decently left in the news media. Journalism was still rife with partisanship, but the level of vitriol was noticeably less.
Is there a pay off to the current use of fear, I do not know and I guess only time will tell. My fear is that some kook will go off the deep end and grab a rifle to prove their fears are justified.
I think though, that fear-based politics has several weaknesses. The first is what you've described above, that often the fears fade in the face of facts and reason. You bring up the strategy of repetition, which is a way propaganda is often given credibility. If you repeat it enough, people begin to believe it. But this is also a weakness with fear-based politics. Because as a stimulus to get people to act, intermittent stimulus is much more effective than regular, repetitious stimulus. If you repeat it enough, you might make the claim more credible, but you also make the fear less intense, which means that you have to expand the fear by making ever-wilder claims to support the fear, which make you lose credence.
I have been thinking about this subject in general a great deal lately and spent some time last night reading up on the psychological basis of why fear is such a powerful means to influence opinion.
When situations arise the invoke a strong fear response, the amygdala portion of the brain is triggered. The reason that even repeated use of a same subject can be so lasting is the same reason people suffer from PTSD and struggle with reliving events repeatedly.
n complex vertebrates, including humans, the amygdalae perform primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Research indicates that, during fear conditioning, sensory stimuli reach the basolateral complexes of the amygdalae, particularly the lateral nuclei, where they form associations with memories of the stimuli
Memories of emotional experiences imprinted in reactions of synapses in the lateral nuclei elicit fear behavior through connections with the central nucleus of the amygdalae. The central nuclei are involved in the genesis of many fear responses, including freezing (immobility), tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), increased respiration, and stress-hormone release. Damage to the amygdalae impairs both the acquisition and expression of Pavlovian fear conditioning, a form of classical conditioning of emotional responses.
To make a long story short, fear works in guiding social opinions and is easily manipulated to illicit a desired response. So my question might be, if we know this and we understand this by acknowledging it, then why does it continue to be such an effective means of control?
I have been thinking about this subject in general a great deal lately and spent some time last night reading up on the psychological basis of why fear is such a powerful means to influence opinion.
When situations arise the invoke a strong fear response, the amygdala portion of the brain is triggered. The reason that even repeated use of a same subject can be so lasting is the same reason people suffer from PTSD and struggle with reliving events repeatedly.
n complex vertebrates, including humans, the amygdalae perform primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Research indicates that, during fear conditioning, sensory stimuli reach the basolateral complexes of the amygdalae, particularly the lateral nuclei, where they form associations with memories of the stimuli
Memories of emotional experiences imprinted in reactions of synapses in the lateral nuclei elicit fear behavior through connections with the central nucleus of the amygdalae. The central nuclei are involved in the genesis of many fear responses, including freezing (immobility), tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), increased respiration, and stress-hormone release. Damage to the amygdalae impairs both the acquisition and expression of Pavlovian fear conditioning, a form of classical conditioning of emotional responses.
To make a long story short, fear works in guiding social opinions and is easily manipulated to illicit a desired response. So my question might be, if we know this and we understand this by acknowledging it, then why does it continue to be such an effective means of control?
It continues to work because we all know that the world can be a dangerous place. Most people have an incipient fear or anxiety because of this knowledge. It's comforting to specify the fear, to identify it, rather than to consider the possibility that the threat can come from anyone. We don't want to think that our next-door neighbor might potentially be a serial murderer. We don't want to think that our children's friends might be secretly planning another Columbine. We don't want to think that the husband who physically abuses us might step over the line and actually kill us. Life is complex, and in a society with such a degree of mobility, and in a species so adept at facades and deception, it's not only comforting to identify the potential danger is from that source, but it is also comforting for that source to be outside society. I remember distinctly the OKC bombing, and 99% of the people I was with that afternoon were trying to figure out who would do such a thing. There suspects were all foreign threats.
Even pointing out that some of the threats to our security are internal sparks a level outrage, as we saw earlier this year. We want to think the best of ourselves, and the worst of people who aren't "us".
And yet, the threat assessment levels system that was put into place after 9/11 tells us that the fear lessens, like a bad odor, humans become accustomed to fear. While PTSD seems to contradict this, it really doesn't. Over time, fear episodes triggered by PTSD become less frequent, and less stressful. And a key to PTSD is that the traumatic event is unique. From what I've read, and people I've talked to, when PTSD events are triggered, the person relives something specific. Something singular. And PTSD may also owe part of its severity to the fact that people suffering from PTSD live in fear for an extended period of time. The heightened awareness, the vigilance, may actually be like peeling back the layers of our civilized conditioning and exposing the more primitive fear response, so that when the key event happens, the chemical reactions have fewer obstacles to making the deep imprint.
And then, given the topic of our discussion, that leads us back to what fear-based politics might do to a general population, because the fear-based politics cause people to live in fear for an extended period of time. And by doing this, are we peeling back the layers of conditioning that living in peace had created, exposing our more primitive selves?
Maybe we should tackle the topic of susceptibility, who are the people most vulnerable to fear-based politics?
And then, given the topic of our discussion, that leads us back to what fear-based politics might do to a general population, because the fear-based politics cause people to live in fear for an extended period of time. And by doing this, are we peeling back the layers of conditioning that living in peace had created, exposing our more primitive selves?
Maybe we should tackle the topic of susceptibility, who are the people most vulnerable to fear-based politics?
To the extent that using fear based politics and social guidance diminishes over time, we end up with the boy who cried wolf among the more measured and balance population. I can point to the use of threat levels during the last administration got to the point where most people just rolled their eyes they happened with such frequency. Then if there was an actual pending threat or an attack, the response is liable to be disbelief before acceptance.
As to who is more susceptible, I would encourage you to skim over the link I tossed in earlier. While it ended up in a lot of controversy, I can see how they arrived at their conclusions. Its a subject I need to further research but I have to admit, it is truly fascinating to me.
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