How to Process Election ResultsThe Way Your Brain Processes Change

STATUS.

Status is about relative importance, ‘pecking order’ and seniority. We all hold a representation of status in relation to others.

Losing an election that won’t cycle back around for 4 years is hard if you feel relegated by the side that won.

Focus on how you role model your beliefs to earn the respect of others.

CERTAINTY.

The brain is a pattern-recognition machine that is constantly trying to predict the near future. There’s actually a range of certainty. Bookend the best case and worst case scenarios and know it’s likely not at either extreme.

Focus more on the winning candidate’s actual behaviors, not unproven outcomes.

AUTONOMY.

Autonomy is the perception of exerting control over one’s environment; a sensation of having choices.

With your candidate not taking the reigns you will feel like a passenger on a rudderless ship.

Focus on what you can control and what you can influence in your community.

RELATEDNESS.

Relatedness is a desire for belonging and involves deciding whether others are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a social group. Whether someone is friend, or foe.

After the election how can we as a community “zoom out” and identify as a larger group, as one country with liberty and justice for all Americans?.

Focus on how to connect across the aisle with foes and how to connect more productively with friends.

FAIRNESS.

Fair exchanges are intrinsically rewarding, independent of other factors. The need for fairness may be part of the explanation as to why people experience internal rewards for doing volunteer work to improve their community; it is a sense of decreasing the unfairness in the world.

Focus on how you can ensure greater fairness in your local community.