Trauma, Triggers, and the Escalation of Conflicts

Use of artificial intelligence has increased and become more readily available to the wider world than in the past. The use of artificial intelligence or A.I. has grown to dictating the future actions of human interactions and needs and services. According to a 2021 article by Dr. Petropoulos, a researcher from MIT, discovered the use of research algorithms to predict shopping patterns, needs for services from ride sharing companies and use in customer service feed-back (Petropoulos, 2021). A study of how the phenomena of A.I interacted with human behavior was conducted and concluded that A.I. was able to not only influence the behavior of human participants, but also had manipulated them to look for certain criteria of related behavior based on the data collected. The study called for an ethical set of rules and guidelines along with heavy human oversight of the A.I protocols to ensure that there were no misuses of the A.I. function. 

What can be gathered from just this instance, is that A.I. has its uses for helping humanity by either offering conveniences, such as targeting ads for products by corporations to their intended audiences, but also provide a means of interaction in building a presence when human interaction is either inaccessible or, in the case of pandemics, hazardous. There is however an underlining understanding of the threat that A.I. could have in that, data of a personal nature could be used for more nefarious purposes, such as creating a profile of behavior in which a company may sell to other companies for profit, the ability for individuals to use sensitive information to extortion individuals. As always, moderation and study are required for furthering the understanding of human behavior and A.I. as it interacts with daily living (continue on AI and Human Emotions Page). 

Jungian Shadows as defined by the American Psychological Association is the typology of personality types in to “introverted and extroverted, and a subset of functional type personalities (APA, 2022). In other words, Jungian shadows are the reflections of the personality types developed by psychologist Carl Jung, where someone may be predilected to a certain darker aspect of their psychological make up. These shadow archetypes were the reflection of personality types inherent to the personality of the individual. This reflection is a darker nature buried deep within a person’s psyche and a result of past traumas, obsessions, and personal history.

The darker side of personalities are often tied to childhood trauma, phobias, and irrational fears, or due to the obsessions of the individual. Understanding how this tie into Jung’s Shadow Typology, is to start to better understand how phobias and childhood trauma. According to the Mayo Clinic, phobias are often manifested from traumatic experiences felt in childhood, genetic disposition, and brain function impacted through traumatic brain injury (continued on Jungian Shadows Page). 

Emotions as defined by the American Psychological Association are a “Complex reaction pattern, involving experiential behavioral and physiological element, by which an individual attempts to deal with a personally significant matter or event…” (APA, 2022) of which differ from feelings and mood that emotions require an object to illicit, moods are often something that are not readily known to have a cause and feelings be completely independent of any stimuli. This meaning, emotions are predicated on external actions to influence the individual to have a response. As a result of this response there is corresponding physiological reaction as well. In 1980 Professor Robert Plutchik noted that there were eight basic emotions, grouped into a set of their opposite pairs. These emotions as arranged by Plutchik as; Anger- Fear, Joy- Sadness, Trust- Distrust, and Surprise- Anticipation. From these four groups, stem several others that relate as well as blend into each other, but having a base somewhere to these eight emotions, for example, joy taken to an extreme become elation, but in a subdued state, serenity. In the English language alone, there are a sum of over three thousand words defining emotions which most can be related to the initial eight states (continued on Emotional Leadership Page). 

First recorded in 1973 and named by Dr. Peter E. Sifneos, Alexithymia comes from the Greek meaning, “No words for emotions” (Goerlich, 2018). This is a condition where those who have experienced trauma cannot identify or term their emotions. Further, this condition can negatively influence the amygdala (emotional processor in the brain) as well as affecting the ability to understand the proper physical responses to trauma and other negative emotions. Those who suffer from alexithymia will have considerable shrinkage of the amygdala and thus cannot properly process emotions across the spectrum. 

When understanding traumatic experiences, the role that alexithymia plays is one protection to the trauma itself. The brain processes trauma in one of two ways, hyperactivity, or disassociation (Catrone, 2021), like those who suffer PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) will often either have either a dissociative episode or will have a moment of hyperactivity and heightened adrenaline responses, psychologists believe these depressive responses are a result of alexithymia. In many cases of alexithymia, most tend to feelings of dejection and malaise to external stimulation emotionally. These depressive responses are a direct result of a lack of emotional dialogue with themselves as well as to those around them (communities, parents, and friends). Likewise, feelings of anger and rage also make up the actions as the frustrations of the inability to put a definition to their emotions becomes an issue.  (continued on Alexithymia Page). 

While the term brainwashing brings negative connotations, the act of brainwashing can have two very distinct paths. A person may be able to indoctrinate themselves into changing their behaviors, such as giving up smoking, another example is in the terms of creating soldiers, through training and indoctrinating them to the culture of the military. Brainwashing is an umbrella for altering the mind and mental state of an individual. 

In this line of psychological methodology, brainwashing is a manipulation of circumstances to coerce either an individual or group of individuals to follow a narrative. This can be seen in radical organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, all terrorist groups (ISIS, Al- Qaeda, The Taliban, etc.…), however the techniques are all the same, emotional manipulation. In Stein’s book, Terror, Love, and Brainwashing, she describes a narrative of a case file involving a woman who sought out counselling for depression, only to become embroiled in a “fringe political group” (Stein, pg.11). This is common among such groups to recruit, as it has been shown that disenfranchised people are often targets for recruitment and indoctrination by entities that harbor an agenda (continued on Brainwashing Page).

Emotions are affected by many external factors, one of the chief sources of which is entertainment. What we watch and what we listen to as human beings influence our emotions both consciously and subconsciously. No matter the medium, be it film, music, video game or the latest social media sensation, our entertainment has an emotional pull on that is not always reticent. An example of this comes from Undark Magazine’s article on emotionally complex video games. In the article Caren Chesler describes the pull for games that evoke a strong and more vividly conscious emotional pull to the story, noting that “The more morally complex the character… the more guilt the player will feel when they make that character behave immorally” (Chesler, 2021)

More than just the gaming world, movies often invoke feelings and emotions ranging from sadness and despair to joviality and childlike whimsy, dating back to the tragedies and comedies of Greek and Roman theater. Entertainment that invokes an emotional response is engaging and highly praised as it may also provide substantial commentary on the current socio-political-economical atmosphere as well as show a very flawed system in the types of black comedy and satire. Moreover, the use of music in advertising also can elicit an emotional response by mixing with images to make a collage that works to target certain emotions. Studies show that the Non- Governmental Organizations or NGO’s that utilized music that evoked a sad response to images shown of certain areas affected by their geographic, political, or economic status and difficulties were able to evoke a strong emotional response causing the viewers of the content to feel sadness and despair to gain support for their cause (Cameron, 2022) (continued on Emotions and Entertainment Page).

Discrimination and Mental Health Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults in the United States” Bostwick, W. B., Boyd, C. J., Hughes, T. L., West, B. T., & McCabe, S. E.

This research study examined the relationship between sexual orientation, gender, racial/ethnic discrimination, and mental health. The participants indicated whether they were male or female, and whether they were heterosexual, gay/lesbian, or bisexual. Participants were instructed to answer questions regarding the frequency and types of discrimination they had faced in the past year, as well as any mental health disorders they had or developed within the last year. The results concluded that two-thirds of participants experienced at least one incident of discrimination within the last year. Participants who experienced only one type of discrimination have less or no probability of having mental health disorders. Gender discrimination was the only type that those who solely reported it was outstandingly associated with past year mental health disorders. However, the more types of discrimination one experienced, the probability of having mental health disorder(s) heightened. This study urges for more research on the connection between discrimination and mental health that include more nuanced factors.

Dr. Wendy B Bostwick has a degree in Public Health and is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Bostwick, W. B., Boyd, C. J., Hughes, T. L., West, B. T., & McCabe, S. E. (2014). Discrimination and mental health among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults in the United States. The American journal of orthopsychiatry, 84(1), 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0098851