When a stoplight slows us down, we run a bit faster, once it shuts off, than we might have otherwise. Profound threats and punishments (read: trauma) have a qualitatively different nature. Profound threats or punishments undermine our ability to believe that our conceptualizations of the present are valid and that our goals are appropriate. Such occurrences disturb our belief in our ends (and, not infrequently, in our starting points).
