Coping with Election Stress

People are seriously freaking out about the 2020 presidential election. In Texas the other day, Joe Biden's rally was canceled due to his tour bus being surrounded by an aggressive group of drivers hoping to literally stop him in his tracks. US rock legend (think Born in the USA), Bruce Springsteen, has boldly stated that he will move to Australia if Donald Trump wins a second term. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The people of the United States are as polarized and divided as ever right now (see Frimer et al., 2017). And this is not a small problem.

Last Wednesday (10/28), in my capacity as a member of the Wellness Committee at the State University of New York at New Paltz, I served as chair of an online panel on the issue of election stress (full video of that panel is found here). In working closely with our committee chair (and Associate Director of Wellness and Recreation), Christina Cordier (at the suggestion of our dean of students, Robin Cohen-La Valle), I organized a non-partisan panel of experts to provide perspective and guidance on ways to think about and cope with the stress associated with this historically difficult election season. Herein is a brief summary of main points from this panel. Hopefully, people find it at least somewhat helpful.

Zoe Perles: Undergraduate Student and Resilience Advocate

Our first panelist was undergraduate student, Zoe Perles. A strong, thoughtful young leader, Ms. Perles described the stress and worry that she is experiencing to put a face to the shared experiences of young people around the nation at this time. Like many Americans, Ms. Perles expressed feeling unsafe in the current political climate, with a shift in the culture that is intimidating to minorities of all kinds, such as people with non-CIS gender identities and people of color. Many young people in the country are worried that Donald Trump's America is particularly non-inclusive and divisive. And, without mincing words, she expressed a deep and genuine feeling of stress surrounding the possibility of our nation continuing further in this direction.

Dr. Karla Vermeulen: Developmental Psychologist

An expert in understanding development in late adolescence and early adulthood, Dr. Vermeulen summarized a data set of attitudes and beliefs that over 100 young adults hold connected with the results of the 2016 election. While her data set is rich and included many specifics, three bottom-line points from her presentation that stood out for me were as follows:

• A high proportion of students felt personally stressed by the results of the 2016 election.
• Approximately 20% of students at a largely liberal university voted for Trump—and many of them felt under attack on their own campus after the election.
• Many students reported an increased interest in becoming politically active in the electoral process into the future.

Dr. Amy Nitza: Counseling Psychologist

Dr. Nitza talked about ways to deal with stress and anxiety associated with the current election season as parallel with ways to deal with stress and anxiety in a general sense. Her guidance was very practical in nature, focusing on a rationale approach to dealing with things.

Dr. Nitza suggested first getting a pen and paper and using your writing to articulate the factors surrounding the stressful situation. She then suggested examining the situation and figuring out which parts of the situation are under your own control and which parts are not. We should, she pointed out, focus largely on the controllable elements of the situation. Next, she suggested coming up with a plan for dealing with those controllable elements of the situation. Kind of like so here are things that you can do something about—what are you going to do? What can you do?

Finally, she suggested watching cute cat videos if all else fails. However the election turns out, millions of Americans will be anxious and unhappy about the results on Wednesday morning. Here is a YouTube video of some very cute ones, if you need it.

Dr. Gweneth Lloyd: Director of Psychological Counseling Center

As the long-standing director of our campus' Psychological Counseling Center, Dr. Lloyd focused largely on how the stress of the current election season is particularly difficult for people from traditionally marginalized groups. Our nation has a long history of racism and there are many who are concerned that Donald Trump's America is one that fans the flames of racism. In her role, Dr. Lloyd has seen an increase in anxiety and depression over the past few years among students of color.

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As a clinician, Dr. Lloyd suggested that people use a broad array of practices to deal with election-related stress, such as breathing exercises, yoga, and even watching funny old movies. Her guidance was, in this way, very similar to the guidance of Dr. Nitza, making me think that a lot of people will benefit from implementing relaxation and de-stressing techniques on Wednesday morning.

Debra Clinton: Local Activist and Educator

A highly successful alumna of our university, and as the founder of the local activist organization Move Forward New York, Ms. Clinton, who is well-known for her action-oriented approach to problem-solving, suggested that getting involved in the process is the key to dealing with this kind of situation. After the 2016 election, along with many others who shared her political concerns, Ms. Clinton worked to raise awareness about issues surrounding the political and electoral process. She worked to connect hundreds of citizens with their elected leaders, helping to cultivate dozens of conversations between government officials with constituents directly. And she has modeled extraordinary civil, respectful activism as a way to deal with stress that she and many others are feeling in regard to the current political climate. In two words, Ms. Clinton's advice boil down to this: Take action.

Glenn Geher: Social Psychologist

In my own section of the panel, I discussed a recent Psychology Today article that I wrote titled 3 Ways to Avoid Them-and-Us Thinking this Election Season. Basing my suggestions on empirically documented social psychological findings, I underscored three main points, as follows:

• Avoid the outgroup homogeneity trap: It is easy to see the other side as completely one unit, with little individual variability among them. This bias, called outgroup homogeneity, is usually erroneous and it rarely leads to conciliatory outcomes.
• Know that the human mind evolved for small-scale politics: One reason that the modern political situation is such a hot mess pertains to the fact that our minds did not evolve for large-scale politics. Realizing that our minds evolved for small-scale politics might help us put the current political situation in perspective.
• Realize that all Americans are in this together: From a social psychological perspective, people work together best when they underscore their common goals. While it may seem like there are two Americas at the moment, the fact is that there is more common ground than we might think. At the end of the day, we're all humans and we all have a ticket on the same ride. We all want happiness, freedom, safety, love, and a healthy environment in which to function. Let's focus on the commonalities to the extent that we can.

A Comment on Cultures of Racism

I'd be remiss to not include a brief, thoughtful discussion that emerged during the question-and-answer session between myself and Black Studies faculty member, Anthony Dandridge. Anthony essentially said that my "Let's all come together" approach sounded nice on the surface, but he wanted to probe a bit. He asked me if I thought that there are some cultures that encourage racist values more than others do. This was an interesting question.

At first in my response, I talked about the universal nature of xenophobia and its evolutionary origins. But then I thought about it more. And realized that while all people may have it in us to be xenophobic, at a cultural level, there certainly are some cultures that rest on racist ideals more so than others do. We wouldn't have a deep and dark history of racism in this country, including years of slavery and segregation, if this were not the case.

I have to say, I'm thankful to Professor Dandridge for getting me to think more about this issue. This conversation got me thinking that, to a large extent, what we are voting for right now, actually, is a cultural set of values, and not really a person at all.

Bottom Line

I'm not going to sugarcoat it: There is an extraordinary amount of stress surrounding the upcoming election. In many ways, the future of the soul of the United States of America is at stake. And the scary thing is that we are more divided and polarized as a people than we have been in a very long time. So yeah, there is a lot of stress going around.

I hope this summary of this panel discussion (full video here) has been helpful. And I truly hope that however things pan out, we are able to see our commonalities and work together—truly together—for a brighter future for the next generations. Because, at the end of the day, this election is ultimately about our shared future.