What is our social contract?
Like many others, I was shocked and horrified to watch, on the news, Sonya Massey get killed. Such a tragic death brings out many strong feelings, and I want to be careful and explicit about which aspects I talk about here. Careful in particular because escalation and violence like I saw on the video does not arise just out of the incident. It comes out of lots of complex, nuanced factors, more than can be properly addressed in a simple blog post.
I’m going to focus on psychological misinformation. I’ll explore how that misinformation interacts with cultural biases and schemas, to finally affect social interactions. And then tying it together with where we might place our focus. I think that’s more than enough to tackle.
Psychological misinformation: Initial observations
Perhaps a good place to start is letting you know what I saw transpire. My perspective as a psychologist, and particularly one who has worked extensively with people in conflict over vastly different beliefs about what is happening (often labeled as “psychosis”, though I’m not giving or not giving that label here, to either main participant). Also remember that these are impressions, not facts. I was not there and do not know Sonya or the officer. Sadly, I will never have the opportunity to know what Sonya’s experience was. And I give impressions not to suggest that I know the right way to understand this tragedy. I give impressions to show how specific interactions are shaped by broader cultural patterns.
Fear and power
Sonya placed the call to the police, reporting suspicious sounds outside her home. To take that step, she was likely already feeling afraid. On the recording, she spoke softly with a somewhat shaky tone. This is consistent with feeling afraid. Her words are brief, generally just reactive to questioning, and often not saying very much, which is consistent with either confusion and/or fear. In contrast, the officer’s tone is firm and sounds strident, and his questions dig into other areas, such as about the car in the driveway. Multiple times, Sonya appears ready to end the conversation, and he keeps it going.
And then those final, awful seconds. It is just seconds: at 8:50 in the Bodycam video, the officer is amused by the “hot, steaming water”; at 9:02, shots have been fired. Twelve seconds. Once again, there is a vast difference in tone and body language. Sonya’s voice remains quiet; a little more firm when saying, “I’ll rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” but not aggressive. We will never have the possibility to know for sure what she was going through. Putting the words together with the sounds, this seems much more consistent with resolve in the face of fear, than aggression. The officer, all between 8:54 and 8:58, raises his voice, curses and threatens to shoot her, and draws his gun. Moments later, she is fatally shot.
My emotional response
It may seem irrelevant to write about what I felt watching her death, but this is one of the most important tools we have. Our responses, when put into context and molded by our values, are our guides to figuring out our responsibility.
In watching Sonya’s final minutes, my responses shift from fear, to shock and helplessness, to anger. Throughout, Sonya seems fearful of her safety, including in those last moments. Whatever she was experiencing when she expressed her repudiation, I don’t feel scared of her but for her. Whereas the officer’s actions leave me feeling shocked and helpless, and then yes, angry. It’s hard for me to understand such a response to her fear. It doesn’t make sense to me, emotionally. I only understand it intellectually, when I bring in context like psychological misinformation and bias.
Let’s look at those now.
Psychological misinformation
Jump back to 5:31 in the video. Sonya’s words and tone of voice have seemed vague about what she is experiencing and what she needs. The officer asks, “Are you doing alright, mentally?” and she confirms that she has “taken my medicine.” This moment is pivotal. It may set into motion a variety of misinformation about psychological distress. From here on, I’m going to broaden my lens to society, rather than talking about this tragedy specifically. I cannot make any statement about these people specifically – I just don’t know. Not knowing is painful. And it is a consequence of deadly actions that cannot be taken back. But I do know, from repeated experience and from research, that people often come with wildly inaccurate beliefs about psychological distress. These beliefs are not self-created, but trained by our culture around mental health.
Myth 1: People with mental health diagnoses (especially psychosis) reason differently
Mental health diagnoses currently come in categories. These categories give the impression that people with those diagnoses somehow process differently regarding those traits. (Btw, I have a class on misinformation in our diagnostic system, if you want to explore this more deeply.) This is simply not true. Evidence does not support any categorical difference in how psychological processes work based on diagnosis (O’Connor, 2002). This is true of cognitive, emotional, sensory, and behavioral processes. Our experiences certainly lead to vastly different beliefs, biases, and intensity of emotional response. They also lead to very different decision making tendencies for actions like risk taking. Nevertheless, the processes themselves are the same.
We all have biases, all use experience-informed frameworks called heuristics to respond, and all use autonomic-driven emotional responding when scared or angry. You shouldn’t try to reason with ANYONE who is scared or angry (and we all get scared and angry!). You should instead help slow them down. Help them to restore a sense of safety. The flip side is also important. When not feeling threatened, we are all capable of reasoning through any situation, no matter what label a diagnosis may give you.
Myth 2: People with mental health diagnoses (especially psychosis) are unpredictable and dangerous
This myth connects to the first one, but needs its own section. Once you recognize that we all use the same psychological and behavioral processes, you will naturally understand predictability the same way. We are all predictable and unpredictable. My experiences may make me predictable in situations you are unpredictable, and vice versa. But, we all show both, just like we all have situations wherein others perceive us as acting irrationally. When afraid, we all are more likely to act with a fight-flight-freeze-faun-flop response. Which one depends on the interaction of biology and learning. These responses to acute fear are predictable.
We can also predict how people who have been given mental illness diagnoses act in dangerous situations. The data is clear. People with a mental health diagnosis are much more likely to be the target of aggression than the aggressor. It is not a helpful factor for prediction. Including for people with a psychotic diagnosis, like schizophrenia (Frank and McGuire, 2011). The major exception is when someone is intoxicated, especially with alcohol. But this has to do with being intoxicated, not with any diagnosis.
More myths and tying together social implications next time…