Behavioral New World
February 1, 2024
Are you positive?
“My mum’s so pessimistic, that if there were an Olympics for pessimism…she wouldn’t fancy her chances.” -- Nish Kumar, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2012
Nish’s mum is arguably an extreme example of negativity bias—our tendency to give greater weight to negative events than to positive events. Why does it seem we’re hardwired this way? A reasonable explanation is that we inherited this tendency from our ancestors for whom negative events could be life-or-death situations, e.g., being attacked by a wildebeest suffering from wasting disease.
Negative bias explains the old journalism saw, “If it bleeds, it leads.” That is, negative stories are granted front-page status because that’s what captures readers’ attention. In turn, the negative news slant leads us to misunderstand the world. For example, crime rates have declined over time (see, for example, Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature). Yet many people believe that crime has soared because of the greater coverage of crime as the number of news outlets has grown.
This bias is related to loss aversion in which a loss of, say, $100 causes more pain than the pleasure of a $100 gain (see my October 2022 newsletter—link here). Because of the asymmetry, we will be more focused on losses (negative events) than on gains (positive events).
“Whether the glass is half empty or half full, it is still half empty.”
What can we do to counteract negativity bias? I have four suggestions.
First, actively look for the positive to counter the negative. You may have lost $100 in the stock market yesterday, but your portfolio has risen in value over the past few years by much more than that.[1]
Second, seek out data rather than rely on public media. You do not have to search original sources. In addition to Steven Pinker’s book, Hans Rosling’s book, Factfulness, comes to similar conclusions. With the usual caveats about using ChatGPT, it is easy to use it to identify the information you want (such as crime rates, life expectancies, disease incidents, and so forth).
Third, you can learn from negative events. Arthur Brooks suggests keeping a Failure Journal [link to short video here] in which you revisit a negative event one month and six months after the fact. One month later, you reflect on what you learned from the failure. And, as an added bonus (but wait, there’s more), six months later you reflect on what good came from the event.
Fourth, a friend of mine keeps something that could be called a Success Journal. He has found, consistent with negativity bias, that he remembers his failures more than his successes. A Success Journal is especially useful when you are frustrated that you are not moving toward your goals, or not getting much done. You’ll likely be surprised how productive you have been. And you will become more optimistic….
…And optimism is good for you. In her book Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain, Elaine Fox argues that optimists on average live longer, are healthier, have stronger immune systems, and persevere more. So the payoff to even a modest effort to offset our negativity bias can yield very positive changes.
So I think there is a strong case to be made for an optimism event in the next Olympics, but it probably won’t happen.
[1] In my book, The Foolish Corner, available on Amazon [link here], I suggest that you not look at your stock account too often, perhaps only quarterly.
Oh, I like the idea of a Success Journal a lot!
An enjoyable read. I see myself here… I sometimes intentionally make lists of positive things that are happening to keep that negativity at bay!