| Many of us frequently complain about the negativity | | | | tend to get more fearful than happy. And each time |
| of the news, particularly now in the economic | | | | we experience fear we turn on our stress hormones. |
| downturn. The conga line of bruising news blankets | | | | Another explanation comes from probability theory. |
| consumers in a headline bombardment that is | | | | In essence, negative and unusual things happen all the |
| probably making the problem worse. | | | | time in the world. In his book, Innumeracy, John Allen |
| Jim Lehrer's NewHour economics correspondent Paul | | | | Paulos explains that if the news is about a small |
| Solmon did an interesting piece on the cascading | | | | neighborhood of 500 or 5,000, then the possibility |
| effect that consumer pessimism has on our | | | | that something unusual has happened is low. Unusual |
| willingness to spend. He said that we are in a state of | | | | things don't happen to individual people very often. |
| "learned helplessness". At the worst, continual bad | | | | That's why very local news like a neighborhood |
| news can even stimulate a state of depression, and | | | | newsletters tends to have less bad news. But in a |
| people who concentrate on all the bad news work | | | | large city of 1 million, dramatic and negative incidents |
| themselves up emotionally and become much more | | | | happen all the time. But most people watch national |
| likely to make unwise decisions, like selling all their | | | | or worldwide media where news reports come in |
| investments at a huge loss or halting their consumer | | | | from large cities at a large scale, so the prevalence |
| spending entirely. Even people who don't watch | | | | of negative stories increase. Add the size of social |
| television or read newspapers are getting hit with | | | | networking communication, and we expand |
| nuggets of negativity through social networking and | | | | geometrically bad news. So from evolutionary and |
| informal conversations. | | | | neuro-scientific and probability perspectives, we are |
| When everyone is talking about recession, we all feel | | | | hard-wired to look for the dramatic and negative, and |
| like something has to change, even if nothing has | | | | when we find it, we share it. |
| changed, says Dan Ariely, author of "Predictably | | | | What about our personal lives? Psychologist John |
| Irrational," People may be scared to spend money, | | | | Gottman at the University of Washington, found that |
| scared about losing their jobs and in doing so will | | | | there is kind of thermostat operating in healthy |
| restrain their spending. Yet look closely. Consumer | | | | marriages that regulates the balance between |
| sales in entertainment, and drugs like Viagra have | | | | positive and negative. He found that relationships run |
| increased. Viacom's sales were down from last year | | | | into serious problems when the negative to positive |
| but still profitable. Best practice companies with a | | | | ratio becomes seriously imbalanced. He also found |
| long-term view are weathering the recession quite | | | | that the magic ratio is five positive to one negative. |
| well. Social networking in many forms is expanding | | | | Is there any good news in all this? According to |
| rapidly. | | | | positive psychologists we can change our habits, and |
| Is the media negative? Media studies show that bad | | | | we can focus on the glass being half-full. When we |
| news far outweighs good news by as much as | | | | acquire new habits, our brains acquire "mirror |
| seventeen negative news reports for every one | | | | neurons" and develop a positive perspective that can |
| good news report. Why? The answer may lie in the | | | | spread to other people. |
| work of evolutionary psychologists and | | | | To apply this positive psychology and brain research |
| neuroscientists. Humans seek out news of dramatic, | | | | knowledge to our attitudes and behaviors with |
| negative events. These experts say that our brains | | | | relation to our current economic conditions, we can |
| evolved in a hunter-gatherer environment where | | | | encourage our news deliverers to present a balanced |
| anything novel or dramatic had to be attended to | | | | and multi dimensional point of view. Giving us the |
| immediately for survival. So while we no longer | | | | news, so that our brains are hard-wired into a |
| defend ourselves against saber-toothed tigers, our | | | | negative state, will just reinforce the current negative |
| brains have not caught up. | | | | economic climate. The best thing people can do |
| Many studies have shown that we care more about | | | | toward a more positive, optimistic frame of mind is |
| the threat of bad things than we do about the | | | | to avoid seeing and reading negative news about our |
| prospect of good things. Our negative brain tripwires | | | | economy on a frequent basis. |
| are far more sensitive than our positive triggers. We | | | | |