ASHLAND, Ore. — A local psychologist says fear is dividing our country.
After several months of COVID-19, Dr. Col says the George Floyd incident happened just as people were starting to lose their fear.
When there is fear, he says we often look for an enemy.
He says the polarization of the country is leading people to search for a truth as another way to ease their fears.
And the more people are afraid, it becomes easy to buy into stories that may not be true especially when social media often perverts the truth.
“Fear will cloud your judgement. Fear keeps you from thinking straight,” said Dr. Douglas Col, Ashland Clinical and Neuro-Psychologist. “They don’t have real information and there’s so much emotion they can’t think clearly.”
Dr. Col says shame and guilt are also themes used often on social media to sway the public’s perception one way or the other.
Dr. Col says that’s just another way to recruit people and pressure them to take a certain point of view.
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