The Science of Fear-Mongering: How to Protect Your Mind from Demagogues | Susan David | Big Think

The Science of Fear-Mongering: How to Protect Your Mind from Demagogues

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Harvard psychologist Susan David explains the dangers of fear-mongering, the questionable ethics of journalism in spreading hate politics, and the disturbing way that repetition wears down our brain's resistance to fallacies and hate speech.Fear has always had a hold on us, but never with such fervor. Welcome to the end of times. We cannot sink lower. ISIS is at our door, our elected leaders are malevolent man-children, amber alerts are lighting up our phones, immigrants are bringing a plague of violence, someone was murdered while playing Pokemon GO, climate change is flooding our homes and starving our crops. How can we go on?

But, breathe deep and let the clouds of panic part; it turns out there’s very little correlation between the above mindset and reality. Terrorism, despite it reported epidemic, is less prevalent in the Western world now than it was in the 1970s and ’80s. Crime is decreasing. Immigrants actually lower crime in gateway cities, and don’t affect crime rates elsewhere. Rates of rape and sexual assault have been declining for decades, and are now a quarter or less of their peaks in the past. Despite Zika and Ebola hype, infectious diseases are down. The list continues and is wonderfully documented at length in Steven Pinker’s book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
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SUSAN DAVID
Susan David, Ph.D., is a Psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School; co-founder and co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital; and CEO of Evidence Based Psychology, a boutique business consultancy. An in-demand speaker and advisor, David has worked with the senior leadership of hundreds of major organizations, including the United Nations, Ernst & Young, and the World Economic Forum. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Harvard Business Review, Time, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. David is on the core faculty of the extraordinary global program Homeward Bound which culminates in an all-women expedition to Antarctica and is being filmed as a documentary. The program aims at increasing the influence and impact of women in the sciences. Originally from South Africa, David lives outside of Boston with her family.
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TRANSCRIPT
Susan David: How do we thrive in a world where every which way we turn our fear is being activated by politicians, by the media and by the desperate events that are happening around us? What is really fascinating when we look at the brain research around fear is that our brains proxy anything that feels unfamiliar, incoherent or inaccessible as being unsafe. There is fascinating research that shows that when people have lower levels of self-esteem and they are in a job in which they are recognized and promoted, that promotion can feel incoherent to the person with low self-esteem. They have low self-esteem and they might be used to and expecting to be treated badly. So what is fascinating is the results showing that when people are promoted when they have a lower levels of self-esteem they are more likely to leave their jobs. Fear is an incredibly, incredibly powerful force in our lives and our brains are fairly immature in assessing anything that feels slightly incoherent for unfamiliar as unsafe.

What this might mean is that if you are used to hearing a story time and time again from a parent or from a partner about how you are not good enough, you are more likely to be drawn to that relationship because it feels familiar. The messaging that you are getting time and time again is connected with what you expect to get.
When we have politicians who are effectively demagogues who are inspiring fear in us, that fear leads to very particular and relatively predictable responses. When we are fearful there is this idea in psychological research of mortality say yes that when our mortality is threatened, when someone says oh this group of people is out to get you and we feel that we are actively being threatened we are more likely to stereotype, we are more likely as individuals to become bigoted, we are more likely to respond to messages that we hear time and time again even if they are against our values as somehow making sense to us.

[irmamaize]

The media is rife with scaremongering. That fear and excitement is then transfered from person to person. During these times, it's important to stay neutral regardless of which political part you are affiliated with. There's a lot of he said, she said which only breeds gross confusion. Also, context is very important.

[yogeshhuja]

This is quite relevant in times of CORONA CRISIS . A lot of people might need this in coming days.

[taschke]

Knowledge and understanding are the antithesis of fear.

[jmacers]

I got here searching for 2020 novel coronavirus fear mongering

[erice]

Fear moves us. The underlining lesson is trying to separate things that are actually dangerous and things that appear dangerous. The problem is you need the ability to see the future to be 100% sure. Fear mongering to me is playing on that percentage of doubt to push a perspective that lacks supportive evidence.

[midwesta-framer]

Fear is not the problem... it's a symptom of something much deeper that needs looked at. So many of us don't know who we really are and fear is one of the best ways to do so. I wish she hadn't used politics to make her point, however. To me, she further divided by choosing that example.

[RedZeshinX]

It isn't simply fear of the unknown. People are desperate to belong to some group, to feel validated, to identify with what is good and right, that they are willing to sacrifice the judicious exercise of their critical faculties to any charismatic charlatan with promises of glory, purity and self-actualization. It's the same basic reason people fight violently at soccer games, join cults or become politically radicalized. Having an enemy isn't just a matter of fear, but it's an easy shortcut to a fulfilling sense of superiority, a measure of assuring condescension against which a person can define their own identity, their loyalty to their tribe, to satisfy oneself with the just nature of their own beliefs. Ideology however arbitrary satisfies basic needs for structure in a chaotic world, transcendence in the face of impermanence and meaning in the face of meaninglessness. It can only be guarded against by a culture of healthy skepticism, but unfortunately at this point in American history innocent, willing credulity is yet celebrated as a virtue.

[IndigoVibes]

Shes just saying to assess fear, not to shelter yourself from it.

[borninprovidence]

The first moment of this video activated my fear response because the speakers title scrolled across indicating that she is highly educated by a status school and I grew up in poverty. I’ve taught myself to filter this inherent bias but I found it wonderfully ironic.

[KelliStretesky]

Well said. This should be the conversation on the news. How do we bring logic to the front and center of the mainstream?

[timzxc]

How many times are we, as just regular people, going to give gravity to those that inspire gloom and doom? It's happened hundreds of times before this covid thing, and it will not be the last. The World isn't ending, fear is only worth what you will buy it at. Do not fear, keep the faith. 1000 to 1 you will wake up tomorrow in the same world you went to sleep in.

[dncbot]

What she is saying is: If it is against your values to fear something, then deny the reality of what you fear, replace it with a what you want to believe about the world instead.

See the description of system 2 thinking:
System 2 is the deliberate thoughtful examination of: what is this person saying? Is it in line with how I really want to be? Is it connected with how I really want to raise my children? Is this a world that I want to support?’

These points tells you that if it is against your values to fear something, then go with your values and what you want to believe. She doesn't take into account the possibility that something might be an actual danger or threat, and that the fear might be valid.

If this is how many people think, then that explains a lot.

[AdrianBroadnax]

How do we protect ourselves from politicians that are too big to jail?

[abhattach]

Our brain sees anything unfamiliar, incoherent, or inaccessible as unsafe.

[nicklopez]

actual video title: How to get out of toxic relationships

This video seems like its more likely to show tactics of how to block out fear mongering, my mom does it but I try and find friends who appreciate me and I block out and get rid of the toxic friends and relationships, so did I overcome it or no?

[luvhambo]

Thanks. Maybe you could do a vid on ideological rigidity, cognitive bias, etc., including what makes it so hard for most of us to objectively examine our own cognitive rigidities.

[thembanitheone]

Indeed. Populism is very relevant at this point in history. We need safeguards against it.

[whatwasisaying]

I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I believe there were many valid points made. The point about becoming inured to bad news was an interesting one. Media primarily covers divisive topics then wonders why the country is so divided. Lol. I'll share this video with my family.

[schoolyardboy]

Step back from the story step forward with our values- good one. Thanks for sharing!

[profiAcc]

Well the first part is absolutely true, it's called mindfulness. Meditation helps so you can see your emotions, all of them, from a distance and act as you'd preferre and think is right, not how you're used to act. The part about Trump is irrelevant to me lol