Our Reactivity to Political Disclosures

All good psychological theories start like this: "There are two kinds of people in the world..."

I'm joking about that, but a lot of psychological descriptions do start with noticing contrasts in the world, like the difference between introverts and extroverts. 

I've noticed something about myself that contrasts with what I've observed in others. The issue concerns reactivity to political disclosures, the degree of dismay and outrage experienced when someone shares political views or affiliation different from our own. Relatedly, there is also our emotional response upon making a political discovery about another person, like seeing something they post on social media.

As we know, friendships have ended and families broken up by politics. Political views are shared or discovered and we find these so upsetting that the friendship ends and the family stops seeing each other. 

For my part, I don't have strong emotional reactions when people disclose their political views or share who they will be voting for. I am also able to see, as an expression of cognitive empathy and perspective-sharing, other people's political concerns, even if I think those concerns wrong, overblown, delusional, or inconsistent. I can, and have, calmly chatted with conspiracy theorists. And in all this, I don't have a lot of emotion. I might be puzzled or perplexed, but I'm not upset. I don't have a sympathetic stress response talking about politics with people who hold different views. 

I've wondered about this lack of a stress response, given the strong reactions I've observed among others. Narcissistically, I pride myself on this equanimity, given the state of our current political discourse, but I also worry about it. As I ponder my lack of reactivity, I've floated the following hypotheses:

Privilege and Social Location: 

As a white, middle-class male I'm more insulated from political marginalization and so can adopt a more "objective" and detached view since I'm going to be okay regardless who wins an election. 

Temperament:

Concerning the Big Five personality traits I score very low on Neuroticism. Which is to say I'm not prone to negative emotional states. My mood is pretty steady, positive, and non-reactive across the board. Given this, it's possible that my non-reactivity to political disclosures isn't a specific capacity but is rooted in my general temperament. I don't get worked up about politics because I don't really get worked up about anything.

Practiced Tolerance: 

In training to be a therapist you grow practiced in providing unconditional positive regard to people no matter who they are, what they have done, or how they think. Most people haven't had much practice sitting with difference or being non-reactive in the face of disclosures, especially shocking disclosures. It's like being a priest hearing a confession. Also, as a college professor I've become very practiced at speaking to "both sides" of political issues so that my liberal and conservative students each will feel safe and feel heard. I've become practiced at presenting and discussing controversial issues in a very unbiased way which aids in perspective-taking. 

Idolatry: 

This is my most judgmental take on the world, that our excessive reactivity to political disclosures reveals an over-investment in electoral politics and a tribalized political identity that has lost its grounding in Christ. Non-reactivity, and I admit this view is very self-serving, may indicate that our relationship to politics is a "well-ordered" desire, put in its proper place, rather than excessively disordered and idolatrous.

For my social science readers, I'd love to perform a regression analysis on all this, to see how these four variables might predict our degree of reactivity to political disclosures. I wonder what the beta weights would be, which variables would have the greatest impact in predicting reactivity. 

Regardless, this reactivity to political disclosures, our sympathetic stress response to people sharing how they are voting, is something that seems to vary among us. And the degree to which this reactivity is rooted in idolatry would make it an object of spiritual formation.