Interesting points raised, Travis. I agree with your overall assessment that negativity bias is one driver of cultural pessimism, due largely to the influence of the media that people consume. At the same time, people also use their immediate environment -- their town/city, social circle, and workplace -- to draw conclusions as to the state of the world. When we narrow our analysis to this latter influence, it's easy to see why people have a generally negative sentiment. Media can draw our attention to larger events that add to our worries, yet it's also the immediate signs of social dysfunction within the home and wider community that also plays a central (if not more salient) role.
Good thoughts Devin. Local and national pessimism is interesting. The link below is to a great article by Our World in Data, showing how we actually tend to be local optimists but national pessimists. When you narrow the analysis to local environment, the result is we tend to be pretty optimistic, with the most optimism reserved for our own individual circumstances. I talk about this more in my most recent article, "The Most Important Graph in the World".
Even though we tend to be local optimists, negativity bias still colors our everyday perceptions as well. Negative everyday experiences will stick out in our mind more robustly than positive ones will, so even the perception of our local environment is tainted by negativity bias, but at the local level, that bias can be counteracted by a multitude of positive experiences. At the national level, these personal positive experiences don't really exist, so our perception is colored more intensely by negativity bias, which explains why we are national pessimists but local optimists - negativity bias affects our perceptions at every level, but we have more counteracting positive perceptions at more local levels.
Nice piece, Travis! To add to your thoughts about positive news orgs: I think part of the reason they are such small players is that positive news is often *boring.* (And I say that as someone who writes in this field.) The orgs often lack the kind of funding needed for deep reporting, and without deep reporting, there's very little story to the story—drama, tension, relatability, all the factors needed for a good "plot." I definitely appreciate the work the Solutions Journalism Network is doing in this arena, to train journalists at major outlets how to write deeply reported stories with a solutions focus.
I also think some of the overt negativity in the Western world in particular has to do with a kind of identity crisis that Greg Lukianoff calls "problems of progress." We don't really know what we're trying to accomplish anymore, versus developing nations that have more serious problems but also have a sense of an upward trajectory.
Great thoughts, thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard of Solutions Journalism Network. Excited to follow their work.
I agree the "problems of progress" are a major issue. There's a long line of cultural pessimism tracing back to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche that claims that material abundance has come at the expense of vitality and deeper purpose. I think the "problems of progress" are a result of this line of cultural pessimism seeping into the public's psyche over the past 150 years - an existential dread about the future coupled with little to no appreciation of our progress to date. It seems to me the key enabler of this pessimism is negativity bias, which allows for pessimistic narratives to get much more time and attention than optimistic narratives. For optimistic narratives to take hold, we first need to constrain our negativity biases so that the optimistic narratives can be evaluated on a level playing field with the cultural pessimists. As of now, it's a one-sided battle.
I suspect you are right about this overall, but then how explain Obama’s huge draw as the candidate of “Hope” and Kamala as the candidate of Joy? These are examples of leaders of positivity. Is there also such a thing as positivity bias? What accounts for this if we are all so preternaturally prone to negativity bias?
Hope can definitely be powerful, but all else equal, negativity is more powerful. Obama wasn't just appealing to hope, but instead to "hope and change". The change piece harps on the negative aspects of the prior administration. Plus even if you think Obama was mainly hopeful and not negative, which is a reasonable argument, I think the immediate reaction against Obama from the Tea Party and then Trump shows that negativity tends to come back stronger even when hope has its day in the sun. There is such a thing as positivity bias, but it tends to exist more frequently on the level of the individual and is tied to personal experience, rather than negativity bias which tends to exist more strongly the further removed one gets from personal experience. This is why most people consider their own personal situation as generally positive but the situation for their state or country as generally negative. Hope and positivity can definitely be appealing, my only point is that all else equal, negativity is subconsciously more appealing to most people, and we need to be aware of that tendency so we can push back against it.
Interestingly, negativity bias is much more potent when we look at others (we know what others have done wrong), but never ourselves (we think we are perfect or less wrong than we actually are). Just a thought.
Yes this is a great point. I'm actually working on an article addressing this very topic. Some will argue that it's futile to even talk about negativity bias because we are so bad at recognizing it in ourselves. I disagree and will lay out why in that next article.
I agree with much of what you say, but if the negativity bias is inherent to human psychology, then it is very unclear that recognizing it will lead to people overcoming it. I don’t remember the source, but I have read that college students that take any entire semester on psychological bias are no less biased than when they started.
Good thought, and I agree that's a potential weakness. Here are two potential responses I'm curious your thoughts on:
1) We have a history of overcoming inherent psychological drivers. Our love of violence is one example. People use to line up by the tens of thousands to attend gladiator "games" and public executions as recently as the 18th century. Our love of violence has dropped dramatically in recent decades despite our evolved love of it. Another example is our ability to regulate our sugar intake. We have a drive to consume sugar but are able to suppress it because we recognize the negative health effects. Imagine how much worse health outcomes would be if everyone thought there were no negative health effects of consuming sugar. Negativity is the same, but we just don't currently recognize our overwhelming desire for it.
2) Even if we can't recognize our own biases, we are good at recognizing the biases of others. Your college students may not have been any less biased, but they did become better at recognizing the biases of others. Individual scientists are very biased, but the scientific community as a whole is not because peers are good at recognizing the biases of others, so what comes out of the scientific ecosystem is relatively bias-free. Right now, we can't even recognize negativity bias in others' political discourse because most of us don't know what it is. Educating on negativity bias will fix that and will lead to relatively less biased narratives, similar to the scientific ecosystem.
It seems like the central argument is that out of all the reasons for increasingly polarized discourse, the primary reason is that we crave the negativity. I buy this argument, because no media companies are forcing us to consume any type of content, and we don't become any safer looking at isolated instances of injustice.
One way I think we could fight our addiction to negativity is fighting our addiction to consumption as a whole. We have so much content we can mindlessly consume on TikTok and Insta that the only stimulus that is novel is negative in nature. Our brains release different chemicals and work off different signals when we consume something positive v.s. something negative/threatening. We're dopamine depleted b.c. social media, so only scary is stimulating.
I completely agree with fighting our consumption as a whole, especially our political consumption. If the prospect of diligently thinking through political consumption and actively resisting negativity bias seems daunting, just tune out of politics and don't vote. Voter turnout is much better correlated with polarization than it is with positive electoral outcomes.
And, sorry, but just to continue the thought, it seems to me that you may be noticing a culturally-determined and time/place-delimited phenomenon. Perhaps 40 years of trickle-down economics that wrecked millions of families and communities especially in the heartland has something to do with the millions of Americas who are so negative in this era. Trump is the king of negativity but more than half of the country has only feelings of everything from dislike to downright disgust and hatred for him and his negativity.
Yes, there are always underlying issues that are real like offshoring and unequal gains in income over the past 40 years. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying that the problems that do exist are fixable. Due to the amplifying effects of negativity bias, many people believe the problems today are worse than ever, not possible to fix, and that the best solution is to burn down the system and try again (or not, in the extreme nihilism case). These overreactions to the problems are caused by negativity bias, and it is the overreaction we should be pushing back against. Negativity bias leads to nihilism and extreme calls for dramatic change, when a more rational approach should lead to incrementalism, bipartisanship, and hope in fixing the problem. On Trump - the other side's disgust and hatred for him (and his supporters) is also largely driven by negativity bias.
I'd argue that this negativity is solely an effect to a cause. The increasing amount of that over time being the proof. Yes, we're better off one way or another today then in the past, it's that which is missing and cannot be seen in materialistic progress that causes the effect. Call it spiritual deprivation if you like. The inability for each and every one of us to actually be ourselves (which requires insight first) instead of affirming to the norm, and being given the responsibility to make and take decisions. In that regard, the human species has died a long time ago... time to change that wouldn't you say?
Interesting points raised, Travis. I agree with your overall assessment that negativity bias is one driver of cultural pessimism, due largely to the influence of the media that people consume. At the same time, people also use their immediate environment -- their town/city, social circle, and workplace -- to draw conclusions as to the state of the world. When we narrow our analysis to this latter influence, it's easy to see why people have a generally negative sentiment. Media can draw our attention to larger events that add to our worries, yet it's also the immediate signs of social dysfunction within the home and wider community that also plays a central (if not more salient) role.
Good thoughts Devin. Local and national pessimism is interesting. The link below is to a great article by Our World in Data, showing how we actually tend to be local optimists but national pessimists. When you narrow the analysis to local environment, the result is we tend to be pretty optimistic, with the most optimism reserved for our own individual circumstances. I talk about this more in my most recent article, "The Most Important Graph in the World".
Even though we tend to be local optimists, negativity bias still colors our everyday perceptions as well. Negative everyday experiences will stick out in our mind more robustly than positive ones will, so even the perception of our local environment is tainted by negativity bias, but at the local level, that bias can be counteracted by a multitude of positive experiences. At the national level, these personal positive experiences don't really exist, so our perception is colored more intensely by negativity bias, which explains why we are national pessimists but local optimists - negativity bias affects our perceptions at every level, but we have more counteracting positive perceptions at more local levels.
https://ourworldindata.org/optimism-and-pessimism
Nice piece, Travis! To add to your thoughts about positive news orgs: I think part of the reason they are such small players is that positive news is often *boring.* (And I say that as someone who writes in this field.) The orgs often lack the kind of funding needed for deep reporting, and without deep reporting, there's very little story to the story—drama, tension, relatability, all the factors needed for a good "plot." I definitely appreciate the work the Solutions Journalism Network is doing in this arena, to train journalists at major outlets how to write deeply reported stories with a solutions focus.
I also think some of the overt negativity in the Western world in particular has to do with a kind of identity crisis that Greg Lukianoff calls "problems of progress." We don't really know what we're trying to accomplish anymore, versus developing nations that have more serious problems but also have a sense of an upward trajectory.
Great thoughts, thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard of Solutions Journalism Network. Excited to follow their work.
I agree the "problems of progress" are a major issue. There's a long line of cultural pessimism tracing back to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche that claims that material abundance has come at the expense of vitality and deeper purpose. I think the "problems of progress" are a result of this line of cultural pessimism seeping into the public's psyche over the past 150 years - an existential dread about the future coupled with little to no appreciation of our progress to date. It seems to me the key enabler of this pessimism is negativity bias, which allows for pessimistic narratives to get much more time and attention than optimistic narratives. For optimistic narratives to take hold, we first need to constrain our negativity biases so that the optimistic narratives can be evaluated on a level playing field with the cultural pessimists. As of now, it's a one-sided battle.
I suspect you are right about this overall, but then how explain Obama’s huge draw as the candidate of “Hope” and Kamala as the candidate of Joy? These are examples of leaders of positivity. Is there also such a thing as positivity bias? What accounts for this if we are all so preternaturally prone to negativity bias?
Hope can definitely be powerful, but all else equal, negativity is more powerful. Obama wasn't just appealing to hope, but instead to "hope and change". The change piece harps on the negative aspects of the prior administration. Plus even if you think Obama was mainly hopeful and not negative, which is a reasonable argument, I think the immediate reaction against Obama from the Tea Party and then Trump shows that negativity tends to come back stronger even when hope has its day in the sun. There is such a thing as positivity bias, but it tends to exist more frequently on the level of the individual and is tied to personal experience, rather than negativity bias which tends to exist more strongly the further removed one gets from personal experience. This is why most people consider their own personal situation as generally positive but the situation for their state or country as generally negative. Hope and positivity can definitely be appealing, my only point is that all else equal, negativity is subconsciously more appealing to most people, and we need to be aware of that tendency so we can push back against it.
Interestingly, negativity bias is much more potent when we look at others (we know what others have done wrong), but never ourselves (we think we are perfect or less wrong than we actually are). Just a thought.
Yes this is a great point. I'm actually working on an article addressing this very topic. Some will argue that it's futile to even talk about negativity bias because we are so bad at recognizing it in ourselves. I disagree and will lay out why in that next article.
Misery loves company, which is great because I cannot stand being around it.
Powerful article! Very well written too. Love the various quotes you included.
Fantastic deep dive into negativity bias. I hadn't considered it as an addiction but it sticks really well.
I agree with much of what you say, but if the negativity bias is inherent to human psychology, then it is very unclear that recognizing it will lead to people overcoming it. I don’t remember the source, but I have read that college students that take any entire semester on psychological bias are no less biased than when they started.
Good thought, and I agree that's a potential weakness. Here are two potential responses I'm curious your thoughts on:
1) We have a history of overcoming inherent psychological drivers. Our love of violence is one example. People use to line up by the tens of thousands to attend gladiator "games" and public executions as recently as the 18th century. Our love of violence has dropped dramatically in recent decades despite our evolved love of it. Another example is our ability to regulate our sugar intake. We have a drive to consume sugar but are able to suppress it because we recognize the negative health effects. Imagine how much worse health outcomes would be if everyone thought there were no negative health effects of consuming sugar. Negativity is the same, but we just don't currently recognize our overwhelming desire for it.
2) Even if we can't recognize our own biases, we are good at recognizing the biases of others. Your college students may not have been any less biased, but they did become better at recognizing the biases of others. Individual scientists are very biased, but the scientific community as a whole is not because peers are good at recognizing the biases of others, so what comes out of the scientific ecosystem is relatively bias-free. Right now, we can't even recognize negativity bias in others' political discourse because most of us don't know what it is. Educating on negativity bias will fix that and will lead to relatively less biased narratives, similar to the scientific ecosystem.
It seems like the central argument is that out of all the reasons for increasingly polarized discourse, the primary reason is that we crave the negativity. I buy this argument, because no media companies are forcing us to consume any type of content, and we don't become any safer looking at isolated instances of injustice.
One way I think we could fight our addiction to negativity is fighting our addiction to consumption as a whole. We have so much content we can mindlessly consume on TikTok and Insta that the only stimulus that is novel is negative in nature. Our brains release different chemicals and work off different signals when we consume something positive v.s. something negative/threatening. We're dopamine depleted b.c. social media, so only scary is stimulating.
I completely agree with fighting our consumption as a whole, especially our political consumption. If the prospect of diligently thinking through political consumption and actively resisting negativity bias seems daunting, just tune out of politics and don't vote. Voter turnout is much better correlated with polarization than it is with positive electoral outcomes.
An excellent piece, Travis. Made me rethink some of my own priors about polarization.
And, sorry, but just to continue the thought, it seems to me that you may be noticing a culturally-determined and time/place-delimited phenomenon. Perhaps 40 years of trickle-down economics that wrecked millions of families and communities especially in the heartland has something to do with the millions of Americas who are so negative in this era. Trump is the king of negativity but more than half of the country has only feelings of everything from dislike to downright disgust and hatred for him and his negativity.
Yes, there are always underlying issues that are real like offshoring and unequal gains in income over the past 40 years. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying that the problems that do exist are fixable. Due to the amplifying effects of negativity bias, many people believe the problems today are worse than ever, not possible to fix, and that the best solution is to burn down the system and try again (or not, in the extreme nihilism case). These overreactions to the problems are caused by negativity bias, and it is the overreaction we should be pushing back against. Negativity bias leads to nihilism and extreme calls for dramatic change, when a more rational approach should lead to incrementalism, bipartisanship, and hope in fixing the problem. On Trump - the other side's disgust and hatred for him (and his supporters) is also largely driven by negativity bias.
I'd argue that this negativity is solely an effect to a cause. The increasing amount of that over time being the proof. Yes, we're better off one way or another today then in the past, it's that which is missing and cannot be seen in materialistic progress that causes the effect. Call it spiritual deprivation if you like. The inability for each and every one of us to actually be ourselves (which requires insight first) instead of affirming to the norm, and being given the responsibility to make and take decisions. In that regard, the human species has died a long time ago... time to change that wouldn't you say?
Awesome piece and a great solution. If only we could get everyone in to read this, but I’ll gladly be the start!