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The Conversation

Robin Bailey, Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology, University of Cambridge

Trump-style unpredictability isn’t just political theatre – it’s a regulatory problem for your brain

Brain Donald Trump

Vitalii Vodolazskyi/Shutterstock.com

Donald Trump can change the temperature of a room with a sentence. One minute he is certain, the next he is backtracking. One day he is threatening, the next he is hinting at a deal. Even before anything concrete happens, people brace for his next turn.

That reaction is not just political. It is what unpredictability does to any system that requires stability. To act at all, you need some working sense of what is happening and what is likely to happen next.

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