Why we love bad news and how it supports the recession - FP Posted

Why we love bad news and how it supports the recession - FP Posted

Why we love bad news and how it supports the recession
Posted: April 13, 2009, 12:08 PM by Ray Williams
recession, Ray B. Williams, good news, FPCareers Blog, bad news, neuroscience

Excepts:

Is the media negative? Media studies show that bad news far outweighs good news by as much as seventeen negative news reports for every one good news report. Why? The answer may lie in the work of evolutionary psychologists and neuroscientists. Humans seek out news of dramatic, negative events. These experts say that our brains evolved in a hunter-gatherer environment where anything novel or dramatic had to be attended to immediately for survival. So while we no longer defend ourselves against saber-toothed tigers, our brains have not caught up.Many studies have shown that we care more about the threat of bad things than we do about the prospect of good things. Our negative brain tripwires are far more sensitive than our positive triggers. We tend to get more fearful than happy. And each time we experience fear we turn on our stress hormones.

Is there any good news in all this? According to positive psychologists we can change our habits, and we can focus on the glass being half-full. When we acquire new habits, our brains acquire "mirror neurons" and develop a positive perspective that can spread to other people like a virus. This is not about being a Pollyanna or "goody-two-shoes," is about being able to reprogram our brains. To apply this positive psychology and brain research knowledge to our attitudes and behaviors with relation to our current economic conditions, we can encourage our news deliverers to present a balanced and multi-dimensional point of view. Giving us the bad news, so that our brains are hard-wired into a negative state, will just reinforce the current negative economic climate. The best thing individual people can do to help our economy recover, is move toward a more positive, optimistic frame of mind by not seeing and reading negative news about our economy on a frequent basis.


Read full article: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpposted/archive/2009/04/13/why-we-love-bad-news-and-how-it-supports-the-recession.aspx

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This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.