Can we overcome a preference for bad news with positivity bias?

The New York Times, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, recently published an article about media coverage of the pandemic.

The article convincingly demonstrated that the overall coverage of the pandemic has been biased negatively and has virtually ignored the many positive events that could have been reported. The Times article makes the case that not only were positive events ignored, they were actively dismissed and discounted.

As an example, the amazing accomplishment of producing not one, but five vaccines in under a year was never heralded. It was only mentioned under coverage of the rare bad reactions or with bold warnings that there may be variants coming that the vaccines may not cover.

It’s not only the media that seem to have a negative focus.

My recent experience of an Easter sermon found the pastor focusing on the most terrible aspects of the virus, after making a show of taking off a mask before speaking in a staged virtual production. I thought I was in a time machine and being taken back a year to before we knew much about the virus and before we had multiple effective treatments, including antibody treatment, and before we had … five different vaccines!

Many people have the feeling that some viewpoints don’t really want to see things get better, or return to normal, or at least they are stuck in an overwhelmingly negative position.

From a psychological perspective, one might ask why it is that the media and many people seem to be drawn to bad news? As a journalism student back in the day, we were often told that “good news doesn’t sell.”

There is an anecdote I’ve heard about a smalltown newspaper that only published good news, and after a brief spate of interest, readership evaporated and the paper went out of business.

A more recent study by a Russian newspaper found that efforts to find the silver linings in its stories resulted in a 66% decline in readership within a few weeks. The conclusion is that people simply do not want to learn about positive events happening in their community or to their neighbors but are drawn to bad news.

Psychologists call this a “negativity bias” and believe it is based in the brain’s need to prioritize survival and thus to pay more attention to potential threats. A recent neurophysiological study found that bad news creates a higher activation of the brain and greater attentiveness than neutral or good news.

So it does appear that our brain has evolved to be acutely aware of things that may cause harm and is much less interested in things that pose no risk.

This may lead the media and social institutions to capture our interest, and perhaps even our dollars, by focusing on the negative to the exclusion of the positive.

That may have the unintended consequence of negatively shaping people’s minds and viewpoints over the years. This may explain why objective research has shown that people believe there is greater social unrest, poverty, war and violence in the world than really exists. People also generally believe that things are getting worse in the world, when by every measure of human advancement things are trending positively.

Research on negativity bias has shown that not all people have this tendency. There are some people that prefer positive news and are more comfortable with optimism. These individuals strive to find the good in things and will look for and interpret events, even difficult ones, more positively.

People who have a “positivity bias” or who are optimistic in their life views live longer and are happier. They are also generally healthier and have more stable relationships. These findings are true, even when socioeconomic status is controlled or matched between groups.

While negativism may naturally catch our attention, it is optimism that yields lifelong benefits. Maybe it’s time to make an effort to look on the brighter side of life.

By being more aware of the amplified negativity around us we can strive to mitigate it and create a more positive view of things. Maybe we can attempt to express a more positive view of the world to others.

After all, it is springtime, and we have five vaccines available and growing immunity in our population.

We are starting to do normal things again and it looks as though our best days are ahead!