Be Wary of ‘Emotional Hijackings’

Posted on July 31, 2009
Filed Under Emotions | Leave a Comment

At their next meeting, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley might consider forming a “Cool It Club” that should have chapters in every community in America – especially in Washington, D.C.

I wasn’t there, but by all accounts, what appears to have happened at the Cambridge home of Professor Gates shortly after noon on July 16 was, in Daniel Goleman’s term, an “emotional highjacking.” While complicated by race, the incident seems to have been an emotional flareup that could happen to any of us, if we’re not mindful of what may be occurring. That’s because we all have human emotional systems.

Professor Gates had just completed a no-doubt exhausting trip home from China, had had trouble opening his front door, and then found a police officer – Sgt. Crowley – at the door suspecting him of breaking into his own home. (A lady passerby with a cell phone had called the police.)

Certainly there were all the makings of an emotional flareup, and we ought to be mindful that one could befall any of us under similarly stressful circumstances.

“Such emotional explosions,” Daniel Goleman wrote in Emotional Intelligence, “are neural hijackings. At those moments, evidence suggests, a center in the limbic brain proclaims an emergency, recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda. The hijacking occurs in an instant, triggering this reaction crucial moments before the neocortex, the thinking brain, has had a chance to glimpse fully what is happening, let alone decide if it is a good idea. The hallmark of such a hijack is that once the moment passes, those so possessed have the sense of not knowing what came over them.”

Should even a Harvard professor have such a flash emotional upset in the presence of a police officer suspecting him of breaking-and-entering, the moment might go awry. It could happen to any of us under emotionally charged circumstances.

Again, I wasn’t there on that Cambridge porch, but it appears very likely that the “teachable moment” President Obama had in mind when he invited Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley to the White House yesterday might have included reflections on how we are all subject to emotional surges at anxiety-filled moments. They blindside us, and keep us from responding effectively.

The more we can be prompted to recognize and handle such super-charged moments, the better it will be for us all. An emotional early warning system – very early – is needed. The kind that arises from prior awareness or ingrained sensitivity. Talking about such realities can be helpful. Maybe thoughts like this were exchanged at the White House “beer summit” yesterday. We can hope so.

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