Humans are naturally drawn and focus on depressing/negative stories without realizing.
- According to
Psychologist Tom Stafford.
Everyone seek
good fortune but everyone tends to focus on the negative encounters than
the good things that happened in their life. As a result, there are even
some people who accuse and blame their positive fortune forecast to be
inaccurate.
To explore and
reinforce this possibility, researchers Marc Trussler and Stuart Soroka, set
up an experiment, run at McGill University in Canada.
Ø They
were dissatisfied with previous research on how people relate to the news –
either the studies were uncontrolled (letting people browse news at home, for
example, where you can't even tell who is using the computer), or they were
unrealistic (inviting them to select stories in the lab, where every
participant knew their choices would be closely watched by the experimenter).
So, the team decided to try a new strategy: deception.
1.
Trick question
Trussler and Soroka invited participants from their university to come to the lab for "a study of eye tracking". The volunteers were first asked to select some stories about politics to read from a news website so that a camera could make some baseline eye-tracking measures. It was important, they were told, that they actually read the articles, so the right measurements could be prepared, but it didn't matter what they read.
Trussler and Soroka invited participants from their university to come to the lab for "a study of eye tracking". The volunteers were first asked to select some stories about politics to read from a news website so that a camera could make some baseline eye-tracking measures. It was important, they were told, that they actually read the articles, so the right measurements could be prepared, but it didn't matter what they read.
After this ‘preparation’ phase, they watched
a short video (the main purpose of the experiment as far as the subjects were
concerned, but it was in fact just a filler task), and then they answered
questions on the kind of political news they would like to read.
The results of the experiment, as well as
the stories that were read most, were somewhat depressing. Participants often
chose stories with a negative tone – corruption, set-backs, hypocrisy and so on
– rather than neutral or positive stories. People who were more interested in
current affairs and politics were particularly likely to choose the bad news.
However, when asked,
these people said they preferred good news. On average, they said that the
media was too focussed on negative stories.
In relations, the researchers present their experiment as solid evidence
of a so called "negativity bias", psychologists' term
for our collective hunger to hear, and remember bad news.
Furthermore, many evolutionary psychologists and neuroscientists stated
that humans seek out news of dramatic, negative events. These experts say
that our brains evolved in a hunter-gatherer environment where anything novel or
dramatic had to be attended to immediately for survival. Subsequently, many
studies have shown that we care more about the threat of bad things than we do
about the prospect of good things. Our negative brain tripwires are far more sensitive than
our positive triggers. We tend to get more fearful than
happy. And each time we experience fear we turn on our stress hormones.
Hence, let us move forwards!! (^_^)
Despite we are sucked
into the dark hole of negative, we can still use our energy to divert the
negativity into a positive inspiration and motivation.
According to positive
psychologists we can change our habits, and we can focus on the glass being
half-full than half-empty. When we acquire new habits, our brains acquire
"mirror neurons" and develop a positive perspective that can spread
to other people like a virus. This is not about being a Pollyanna or
"goody-two-shoes," it is about being able to reprogram our brains. To
apply this positive psychology and knowledge to our
attitudes and behaviors with relation to our different encounters, we can encourage
and presenting a balanced and multi-dimensional perspective towards a positive
constellations.
In additions, Smiles (^_^) are contagious, especially
on social media. According to The New York Times' website to
see which articles were shared the most; positive articles get shared the most!
(Scientific, Exciting, and Funny articles were shared much more than
devastating or negative articles)
- Psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered that good news spreads the fastest by scanning people's brains and monitoring their emails and social media posts. "...when you share a story with your friends and peers, you care a lot more how they react. You don’t want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer.”, says Jonah Berger, an assistant professor of marketing and social psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered that good news spreads the fastest by scanning people's brains and monitoring their emails and social media posts. "...when you share a story with your friends and peers, you care a lot more how they react. You don’t want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer.”, says Jonah Berger, an assistant professor of marketing and social psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania.
References & edited from:
- http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140728-why-is-all-the-news-bad
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201411/why-we-love-bad-news-more-good-news
Smiles As Always (^_^)
