Things may not be all that bad

Whenever you open the paper, turn on the news, or check in with social media, it’s hard not to think that William Butler Yeats was more realist than poet. In The Second Coming he wrote how ‘‘things fall apart, the centre cannot hold [and] darkness drops again’’. If you’ve started the new year thinking the economy, the city, or your life is getting worse (and is perhaps even on the brink of some disaster), then you’ll know exactly where Yeats was coming from.

While few social scientists write as well as Yeats, what they have to say is just as interesting. For them, it’s no surprise that bad news always seems to crowd out the good. This is because we’re wired to notice, process, and remember negative things much more powerfully than positive ones.

For obvious reasons, psychologists call this the ‘‘negativity bias’’. There’s plenty of research that demonstrates how common this bias is but it’s easy to see in your own life too: think about how easily you dismiss compliments you receive but how hard it is to forget any insults. It’s as if our memories dim the lights on our successes while throwing a spotlight on our failures.

The notion that this is a ‘‘bias’’ is critical here. It underscores the point that, because those negative experiences are much more salient, it’s just one short step from thinking they are more common or likely.

This tendency is magnified because we really are much more likely to hear from those worstaffected by any change. Let’s say there is policy proposed that will deliver a small benefit to most people but will leave a minority worse off. In everyday situations like these, we’re unlikely to hear from those who will benefit.

This isn’t a conspiracy of silence so much as simple psychology. It happens because our brains experience losses much more profoundly than they experience gains. If you take $50 from one of your friends and give it to another friend, the one you take it from will be much more upset than the other one will be happy.

In fact, the best evidence suggests that loss will have twice the emotional intensity as the gain. Given that, it’s no surprise that those who experience, or fear, a loss make the most noise and attract the most media attention (and dominate the comments on Stuff).

Taken together, negativity bias and loss aversion help explain what social scientists call ‘‘declinism’’. As the name suggests, this is a common belief that things are in decline and that everything was somehow better in the past.

As with all biases, this may seem intensely personal and real, but it’s reassuring to know that people have been writing about the decline of their civilisations pretty much since writing began. It’s a bias that is immune to the benefits of progress.

It’s important to note that I am not arguing that – as a country or a city – we don’t have serious problems to address. What I am arguing is that our basic psychology frequently makes it hard to know which ones those are. Our in-built inclination toward negativity skews both how we see the world and how the media presents it to us. In a perfect world, all media stories would come with a warning about both.

But in the meantime, it might help to remind everyone you know that things are unlikely to be as grim as they seem.

Carl Davidson is a social scientist and head of insight at Research First. He was previously the chief commissioner of the New Zealand Families Commission.