Why our brains are biologically wired to ignore the good news
In short: We claim to crave positivity, yet our news feeds remain dominated by doom. Is this a failure of modern journalism, or a deep-seated evolutionary survival mechanism? Understanding why we prioritize negativity might be the first step toward changing the human story.
The preference for negative information is not merely a journalistic trend; it may be rooted in our biological history. According to Stuart Soroka, humans might be neurologically or physiologically predisposed to focus on negative data. This stems from an evolutionary-biological logic: the potential costs of ignoring a threat far outweigh the benefits of noticing an opportunity. In a survival context, prioritizing negative information was an evolutionary advantage.
This bias manifests clearly in commercial metrics. Research shows that newsstand magazine sales can increase by roughly 30 per cent when a cover features negative rather than positive imagery. The impact on digital media is even more dramatic; one instance noted a 66 per cent decrease in readership for an online Russian newspaper following a 'good news day'. This suggests that news agencies, driven by the need for audiences and sales, naturally gravitate toward a 'if it bleeds, it leads' approach.
However, there is a fascinating tension between how we share news and how we consume it. Arianna Huffington highlights research indicating that social media users tend to circulate uplifting news more frequently. Yet, a disconnect remains: while we may forward positive content to others, our personal news-reading habits still prioritize negativity. Even when participants in studies express a desire for more positive news, they continue to select stories that are predominantly negative.
Journalist Angus Hervey argues that this cycle of doom prevents us from seeing 'stories of possibility.' To change the narrative of humanity in this century, he suggests we must fundamentally change the stories we tell ourselves, moving beyond the preoccupation with catastrophe to recognize progress in areas like public health and environmental protection.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Angus Hervey: Why are we so bad at reporting good news?
- Also: Why do we pay more attention to negative news than to positive news? | LSE British Politics
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