Anxiety in Brazil should worsen after country decides its president, says creator of the term ‘electoral stress’

Shortly before the election that elevated Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, psychologist Steven Stosny noticed that the couples he served were getting worse every day. The tension of the primaries that preceded the 2016 election raised the spirits between them and made them take political issues out on their partners.

Shortly thereafter, to describe the mental burden that his patients and part of Americans felt when they saw the dispute between Republican Trump and his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, Stosny coined the term election stress disorder (“election stress disorder”, in English).

The condition is caused by feelings of helplessness and anxiety brought on by political strife. Such emotions are usually taken out on close people and can lead the individual to compulsive and abusive behaviors, such as alcohol consumption and overwork.

Stosny sees similarities between the mental distress experienced by Americans and the growing fear and anxiety Brazilians report in the wake of the 2022 election.

The increase in political violence was one of the factors driving the debate on mental health in this period. A Datafolha survey showed that one in three voters fear acts of violence in the second round of the dispute between Lula (PT) and current president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

In an interview with Sheetthe doctor in psychology says that electoral stress is a worldwide trend and is vehement in stating that, after the elections in Brazil, the condition will not only remain, but may even get worse.

For Stosny, this is not a new phenomenon, but one that has been fueled by extremism and social media. “It was always there, but it wasn’t that ubiquitous. Today you can’t get away from it.”

Realizing how much this stress was related to news consumption, he came to call it headline stress disorder. The solution, he points out, lies in changing behavior at a personal, interpersonal and institutional level – especially on the part of the press.

In 2016 you coined the term “electoral stress disorder”. What is it and how is it possible to identify this condition? I realized this in the 2016 elections. These elections were very conflicted here in the United States. In my mid-70s, these were the most lewd of watching politics. I thought it would be finished in December as elections take place in November, but it didn’t because the negativity continued in the headlines.

There has always been bad news, but with 24/7 news networks and social media alerts, it has become constant. And they come mixed with your personal messages. This causes confusion. You end up taking the news personally, you know?

A sign of this is that you feel anxious before seeing the news or notifications on your phone. If you have notifications turned on – which I don’t recommend – you feel your whole body tense up right before you look [seu celular]. This is your body preparing you for stress, preparing you to fight a battle.

Can this widespread stress make conditions like anxiety and depression more serious? Yes you can. If you are already depressed or anxious, this can make your condition worse. Since I wrote that article [em que cunhei o termo], works inspired by him have already appeared showing that yes, this increases anxiety and depression. Especially if you keep checking [notícias e redes sociais] all the time.

Most of your work is around interpersonal relationships, correct? How does electoral stress disorder affect these relationships? The first time I noticed this was in the primaries, which take place almost a year before the elections. The couples I work with — who are already stressed, because I specialize in chronic resentment, anger, and emotional abuse — were getting worse. They were getting more confrontational and taking out political issues on partners.

The law of guilt is that it always falls on the closest person. If you’re worried about something, chances are you’ll take it out on your partner or your children.

Here in Brazil we are experiencing an aggressive polarization between Lula (PT), a candidate of the left, and Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the current president and candidate of the right. Do you think our experience here is similar to that of North Americans? I think so and it’s not just in Brazil or the United States. This happens in everyone. In all countries where there are elections. What is happening is that we are killing the moderates, there are only extremists on both sides.

This was not so. In the 1975’s I remember that elections were a little different. [As duas partes] they were in the middle. They tried to be more centrist. But that ended around 2016.

Now there’s a lot of personal attacks, a lot of cursing. I don’t know if it happens there in Brazil, but it’s happening here and I’ve never seen it before. They don’t just attack candidates, they attack the people who vote for those candidates as well. They attack the people they are trying to convince.

And why has this electoral stress grown so much in recent years? Did he always exist? It always existed, but it wasn’t as ubiquitous. Today you can’t run away from it. You look in the old newspapers and they were always negative. They reported rumors as news, just as they do today. This is what we call alternative facts. In the United States they report tweets as if they were news. And this is because there is more and more competition. They need to be more extreme to get more attention. Attention is the gold of the internet.

We fear that here, regardless of the outcome of the elections, the polarization will not dissipate. Do you think electoral stress disorder will subside after the elections are over? No, and I answer with great confidence. This is because feelings will not change after the elections. If your country is divided like mine, half the population will be very disappointed the day after the elections – and that’s a lot of people.

So the stress won’t go away. They will say there was fraud. In fact, it will get worse. What happens is that, because of negative emotions, people develop a victim identity. They feel persecuted.

Is this why fake news has increased so much? Well, we know that psychologically, you only believe the facts if you trust whoever is telling you. And trust has waned. You only believe in people who agree with you.

There is a phenomenon called confirmation bias. This is when you only consider evidence that confirms what you believe and ignore evidence to the contrary. If I believe that a candidate is going to destroy the country, all I will look for is evidence that confirms that and ignore the others. Both sides do this.

Something social media does is feed it with algorithms. Based on your clicks, they will only feed you stories that reaffirm your bias. You think that’s the truth because that’s all you’re seeing.

How is it possible to cure this stress? Just turn off the news? Well, you can’t do that because our imagination is worse. It just needs to be limited. I myself only check the news three times a day and turn off notifications. The news will still be there when I go check it out.

It is also important to connect with friends and loved ones. Before you see the news, give your wife a hug. It gives you some oxytocin, which lessens anxiety. Connection helps us to be less paranoid. It’s paranoia that makes us take everything personally.

Should we connect with people we disagree with too? Yes, in the most respectful way possible. There is a principle called emotional reciprocity. That means whatever you do, you get it back. If you are too critical and disrespectful, you will get criticism and disrespect.

Validate the other’s perspective and provide more information. If you want to persuade someone, you need to stimulate that person’s reflexive brain. You need to ask more questions than statements.

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Steven Stosny, 75

A psychologist and doctor of psychology, Stosny has taught at the University of Maryland and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He writes for Psychology Today and has published articles in The Washington Post.. He is the founder of Compassion Power and the author of seven books on self-knowledge and relationships.