If the emotional rollercoaster of global politics feels overwhelming, the findings of a new study might help to explain why. Emotions evoked by political issues seem to be felt differently in the body than when the same emotions are experienced in everyday life. Understanding how and why this happens may offer clues to how we can stay calm while remaining informed and engaged citizens.

鈥淔eeling more is probably a good thing for democracy,鈥� says at Royal Holloway, University of London. 鈥淔eeling better is about first figuring out what you feel, and then the challenge is learning how to respond rather than react.鈥�

Tsakiris and his colleagues asked nearly 1000 people to mark on a body-outline diagram where, and how intensely, they felt emotions including anger, disgust and hope. Then, they were asked to do the same, but while reading words associated with emotionally laden political issues, such as terrorism and crime.

Their responses were used to create a digital heat map, which covered where in the body each emotion was felt, how intensely, and whether the sensation was linked to feeling spurred into action or demotivated and detached.

Previous research suggests that many , and the patterns of activation or demotivation . Depression, for instance, almost universally shows widespread deactivation across the body, reflecting a lack of energy and motivation, while anger is felt as a high energy, activating sensation in the chest, head and arms.

The new study largely reflected these past findings, except when some emotions were evoked by politics. 鈥淧eople usually feel that their whole body is deactivated when they鈥檙e depressed, but politically linked depression is more mobilising鈥�, says Tsakiris, with more intense sensations experienced throughout the torso and limbs.

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Political disgust was also felt as a higher-energy sensation across the upper body, compared to non-political disgust which clusters around the gut. When compared with non-political emotions, 鈥減olitical disgust more closely resembles anger鈥�, says Tsakiris.

Why this occurs isn鈥檛 clear, but Tsakiris speculates it might be because political issues feel too big to tackle on our own, so we might feel motivated to join a wider cause to effect change. 鈥淭he sense of agency that we have in politics is quite different,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e cannot probably effect a change on our own. It will be a collective effort.鈥�

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By getting better acquainted with our emotions, we may be able to avoid getting trapped in a cycle of doom scrolling and despair, says at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, UK. 鈥淲e like to think of ourselves as rational beings, but that doesn鈥檛 consider how the body influences our decisions, behaviours and responses.鈥�

Quadt and her colleagues have previously shown that training people to listen to their heartbeat and other bodily sensations associated with strong emotions . Getting more in tune with how we feel, 鈥渕ight indeed help to become less overwhelmed by negative emotions and perhaps then enable action, rather than avoidance鈥�, she says.

President Donald Trump wants to ensure the US government only gives federal contracts to artificial intelligence developers whose systems are 鈥渇ree from ideological bias鈥�. But the new requirements could allow his administration to impose its own worldview on tech companies鈥� AI models 鈥� and companies may face significant challenges and risks in trying to modify their models to comply.

鈥淭he suggestion that government contracts should be structured to ensure AI systems are 鈥榦bjective鈥� and 鈥榝ree from top-down ideological bias鈥� prompts the question: objective according to whom?鈥� says at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a public policy non-profit in Washington DC.

The Trump White House鈥檚 , released on 23 July, recommends updating federal guidelines 鈥渢o ensure that the government only contracts with frontier large language model (LLM) developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias鈥�. Trump signed a related titled 鈥淧reventing Woke AI in the Federal Government鈥� on the same day.

The AI action plan also recommends the US National Institute of Standards and Technology revise its AI risk management framework to 鈥渆liminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change鈥�. The Trump administration has already defunded research studying misinformation and shut down DEI initiatives, along with dismissing researchers working on the US National Climate Assessment report and cutting clean energy spending in a bill backed by the Republican-dominated Congress.

鈥淎I systems cannot be considered 鈥榝ree from top-down bias鈥� if the government itself is imposing its worldview on developers and users of these systems,鈥� says Branum. 鈥淭hese impossibly vague standards are ripe for abuse.鈥�

Now AI developers holding or seeking federal contracts face the prospect of having to comply with the Trump administration鈥檚 push for AI models free from 鈥渋deological bias鈥�. Amazon, Google and Microsoft have held federal contracts supplying AI-powered and cloud computing services to various government agencies, whereas Meta has made its 聽available for use by US government agencies working on defence and national security applications.

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In July 2025, the US Department of Defense鈥檚 Chief Digital and Artificial Office worth up to $200 million each to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk鈥檚 xAI. The inclusion of xAI was notable given Musk鈥檚 recent role leading President Trump鈥檚 DOGE task force, which has fired thousands of government employees 鈥� not to mention xAI鈥檚 chatbot Grok recently making headlines for expressing racist and antisemitic views while describing itself as 鈥淢echaHitler鈥�. None of the companies provided responses when contacted by New 女生小视频, but a few referred to their executives鈥� general statements praising Trump鈥檚 AI action plan.

It could prove difficult in any case for tech companies to ensure their AI models always align with the Trump administration鈥檚 preferred worldview, says at Bocconi University in Italy. That is because large language models 鈥� the models powering popular AI chatbots such as OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT 鈥� have certain tendencies or biases instilled in them by the swathes of internet data they were originally trained on.

Some popular AI chatbots from both US and Chinese developers demonstrate surprisingly similar views that align more with US liberal voter stances on many political issues 鈥� such as gender pay equality and transgender women鈥檚 participation in women鈥檚 sports 鈥� when used for writing assistance tasks, . It is unclear why this trend exists, but the team speculated it could be a consequence of training AI models to follow more general principles, such as incentivising truthfulness, fairness and kindness, rather than developers specifically aligning models with liberal stances.

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AI developers can still 鈥渟teer the model to write very specific things about specific issues鈥� by refining AI responses to certain user prompts, but that won鈥檛 comprehensively change a model鈥檚 default stance and implicit biases, says R枚ttger. This approach could also clash with general AI training goals, such as prioritising truthfulness, he says.

US tech companies could also potentially alienate many of their customers worldwide if they try to align their commercial AI models with the Trump administration鈥檚 worldview. 鈥淚鈥檓 interested to see how this will pan out if the US now tries to impose a specific ideology on a model with a global userbase,鈥� says R枚ttger. 鈥淚 think that could get very messy.鈥�

AI models could attempt to if their developers share more information publicly about each model鈥檚 biases, or build a collection of 鈥渄eliberately diverse models with differing ideological leanings鈥�, says at the University of Washington. But 鈥渁s of today, creating a truly politically neutral AI model may be impossible given the inherently subjective nature of neutrality and the many human choices needed to build these systems鈥�, she says.