Political news is mentally taxing, is the solution to lower engagement?

In today’s highly polarized political environment, is it possible to keep up to date with the news of the day without feeling stressed?

If not, are there ways to limit the emotional and physical impact, or are individuals stressed out for greater social benefit?

A new study paints a complex picture with no easy answers.

On the one hand, paying close attention to the day-to-day actions of politicians seems to have a way of making people feel consistently bad. They warn that it looks like a sacrifice. When physical health.

On the positive side, the study found that staying informed about politics has greater benefits and motivates people to become more involved in important causes through volunteerism and financial donations. I know it can be seen.

“I expected people to react negatively to politics every day, but I was a little surprised at how consistent the results were,” says an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. study author Matthew Feinberg said.

What is clear, however, is that all these negative comments seem to stem from underlying facts, said Feinberg.

“They internalize what happens in the political arena,” he said. As a result, “scandals, rudeness and hostility are very common in the political arena and routinely undermine the well-being of many people”.

Feinberg and his colleagues noted that this is not the first study to find that politics causes stress. However, much of the research to date has focused on the stress associated with major political moments such as elections.

To dig deeper, the latest research set out to examine how people react to the regular political news of the day.

In the first experiment, the team spent two weeks talking to about 200 Americans from various political backgrounds.

Each day, participants were asked to highlight any political news that came to mind. how they felt about the news; what they did to process their emotions and overall well-being, and how they felt motivated to get involved in politics.

participant is No I was asked to focus only on negative reactions to political news. Yet most people did anyway. This suggests that exposure to everyday politics is a largely negative experience.

And the team found that all the negative emotions triggered by the constant stream of daily political news were associated with reports of worsening overall health, both mentally and physically. .

In a second experiment, researchers asked over 800 Americans (again, all political storylines) to watch news briefs on television. Liberals saw a clip of his host on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s Liberal. Conservatives saw a clip of Conservative host Tucker Carlson on his news Fox.

Participants who saw one of the partisan reports said they felt much more negative afterwards, compared to those who saw the “neutral” non-political clip.

Yet both experiments highlighted the positive aspects of constant exposure to political news. In both cases, participants said that feeling bad about the news made them more likely to get involved in politics, regardless of their political affiliation.

In both cases, participants also suggested that there are effective ways to curb negative reactions to the news. One was to take steps to distract and move away from the daily political turmoil.

“In terms of protecting ourselves, we have found it helpful for people to rethink or reinterpret political events and use emotion regulation strategies to keep them from being emotionally aroused,” says Feinberg. explained.

“For example, people can distance themselves from politics by reminding themselves that what happens on the political stage has little to do with their private lives. You can distract yourself with something more fun, apolitical, [such as] I watch movies and play video games. ”

But it seemed to make “difficult trade-offs,” Feinberg said. In both experiments, when people took steps to limit their emotional influence, they also became less involved in the political process.

“If you don’t protect yourself, your health is more likely to deteriorate, but you’re more motivated to take action,” says Feinberg. “If you protect yourself, your health will improve, but your motivation to take action will decrease.”

The survey results were published online on January 19th. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Lynn Bufka, a member of the American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America” ​​team, pointed out another reason why political news provokes negative reactions.

By focusing on the negative elements of political action, our news cycle “has a tendency to highlight the controversial aspects of politics and perhaps ‘attract’ more negative sentiment.” Bufka said.

In that sense, she agrees that “learning to manage your emotions is important” and risks doing so “reduces your willingness to act in line with your political views.” Even if you raise it.

According to Bufka, the challenge for people is to “find ways to manage strong emotions while maintaining motivation to act while working towards desired change.”