Fear Affects the Ability to Think Clearly – Confronting Christian Nationalism

NOTE TO READERS:
Since 2017, many things have been said and done in America’s political environment that cause people to ask these kinds of questions:

- What are they thinking?
- Why do they say that?
- Why do they do that?
- Where does that come from?

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These are fair questions because the things said and done are far outside of the norms of American politics and civil behavior. Many concerned people have tried to answer these questions and offer ideas on how to deal with the social and political division that norm-breakers have caused. The following series of pages on Fear and Anxiety may provide answers to these questions. You are currently reading the third page of a five-part series on fear and anxiety in the context of Christian Nationalism.

FEAR AFFECTS THE ABILITY TO THINK
Perhaps the worst consequence of fear is the long-term effects on the ability to think straight and make good decisions. Sustained fear can have significant consequences on an individual’s ability to make good decisions. Here are some key points:

1. Fear can impair cognitive processes involved in decision-making, such as risk assessment and judgment.
2. When fear is unconscious or unacknowledged, it can distort reality and lead to an exaggeration of perceived threats, clouding rational decision-making.
3. Physiologically, fear increases the secretion of cortisol, a stress hormone that can impact cognitive functioning and decision-making abilities.
4. The relationship between fear and decision-making is complex and can be exacerbated by pre-existing factors (e.g., clinical anxiety/depression, early life trauma/abuse, Impaired fear extinction capacity, etc.) present in the psychological background of people who perceive real or imagined fear.
5. The effects of real of imagined fear may be moderated by gender, physiological factors, and other contextual variables present in individuals and their communities.

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See How Does Fear Influence Risk Assessment and Decision-Making? in Psychology Today for insights about fear and decision-making that help explain why Christian Nationalists do some of the unpredictable, illogical, egregious things they do and why they believe in conspiracy theories. Here is how perplexity ai reports the relationship of fear and anxiety to belief in conspiracy theories:

Fear and anxiety increase motivations to make sense of threatening situations, making them more likely to attribute events to the actions of hostile conspiracies. Negative emotions like anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of control are psychological origins of conspiracy beliefs. Correlational and experimental studies extensively support the emotional nature of conspiracy beliefs:

- - - Conspiracy beliefs are correlated with trait anxiety
    - Inducing lack of control increases belief in conspiracy theories
    - Experiencing subjective uncertainty predicts increased conspiracy beliefs.

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Negative emotions like fear and anxiety activate cognitive processes like pattern perception and agency detection, both of which increase the likelihood of conspiracy thinking. Cold, non-emotional thinking associated with analytical thinking decreases as belief in conspiracy theories grows.

Recent theoretical models view conspiracy beliefs as an individual reaction to real or imagined threatening experiences. Empirical studies find links between conspiracy beliefs and feelings of anxiety and distress. Individuals who endorse conspiracy theories tend to be more anxious and less tolerant of ambiguity compared to those who don’t. believe in conspiracy theories.

In summary, multiple studies demonstrate that fear, anxiety, lack of control, and other aversive emotional experiences predispose people to believe in conspiracy theories by activating sense-making motivations and intuitive cognitive processes like pattern perception. The evidence suggests conspiracy beliefs are grounded in emotions rather than analytic thinking.

We learn from all this that the effects of the pervasive fear that motivates most Christian Nationalists are very real, powerful, and destructive. When we consider this reality alongside the fact that Godly love is the only power that conquers fear and gives us a sound mind, we must conclude that Godly love for neighbors is the only antidote for the fear that motivates Christian Nationalists. Obviously, political activism, religion and spiritual warfare do not have that power. If these philosophies had this kind of power, America would not be in the political and social mess it is in.

See these pages for more on this topic:

See articles below for more about the ways fear and anxiety affect thinking: