💾 Archived View for gmi.noulin.net › mobileNews › 5141.gmi captured on 2021-12-03 at 14:04:38. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tom Stafford
Why are newspapers and TV broadcasts filled with disaster, corruption and
incompetence? It may be because we re drawn to depressing stories without
realising, says psychologist Tom Stafford.
When you read the news, sometimes it can feel like the only things reported are
terrible, depressing events. Why does the media concentrate on the bad things
in life, rather than the good? And what might this depressing slant say about
us, the audience?
Many people often say that they would prefer good news: but is that actually
true? Tom Stafford
It isn't that these are the only things that happen. Perhaps journalists are
drawn to reporting bad news because sudden disaster is more compelling than
slow improvements. Or it could be that newsgatherers believe that cynical
reports of corrupt politicians or unfortunate events make for simpler stories.
But another strong possibility is that we, the readers or viewers, have trained
journalists to focus on these things. Many people often say that they would
prefer good news: but is that actually true?
To explore this possibility, researchers Marc Trussler and Stuart Soroka, set
up an experiment, run at McGill University in Canada. 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.
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.
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.
A man reads about the MH17 plane crash (AFP/Getty Images)
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.
And yet when asked, these people said they preferred good news. On average,
they said that the media was too focussed on negative stories.
Danger reaction
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.
It isn't just schadenfreude, the theory goes, but that we've evolved to react
quickly to potential threats. Bad news could be a signal that we need to change
what we're doing to avoid danger.
As you'd expect from this theory, there's some evidence that people respond
quicker to negative words. In lab experiments, flash the word cancer , bomb
or war up at someone and they can hit a button in response quicker than if
that word is baby , smile or fun (despite these pleasant words being
slightly more common). We are also able to recognise negative words faster than
positive words, and even tell that a word is going to be unpleasant before we
can tell exactly what the word is going to be.
We tend to pay more attention to negative words in headlines (Getty Images)
So is our vigilance for threats the only way to explain our predilection for
bad news? Perhaps not.
There's another interpretation that Trussler and Soroka put on their evidence:
we pay attention to bad news, because on the whole, we think the world is
rosier than it actually is. When it comes to our own lives, most of us believe
we're better than average, and that, like the clich s, we expect things to be
all right in the end. This pleasant view of the world makes bad news all the
more surprising and salient. It is only against a light background that the
dark spots are highlighted.
So our attraction to bad news may be more complex than just journalistic
cynicism or a hunger springing from the darkness within.
And that, on another bad news day, gives me a little bit of hope for humanity.