Why Bad is Stronger Than Good, Why We Are Drawn to Bad News, and How to Counter It

Bad is stronger than good.  This is called the “negativity effect.”  Our minds are attuned to be on alert for the bad.  The brain scans the environment looking for anything negative and when the brain finds it, the brain devotes more attention and more processing to that negative thing than to any good thing around. 

This is the research that Roy Baumeister and John Tierney write about in their book The Power of Bad.  The mind reacts more strongly to bad things, so the bad seems to have a stronger effect than the good. This “negativity bias” means that  “We are biased to attend to bad things, to think about them more, to have stronger feelings about them, to remember them better, and to react to them in planning for the future.”

You see the connection to anxiety?

This system works well to keep us alive in a world where we are constantly under threat, but it works against us in a world like the one we currently live in – a world with a constant newsfeed.  “Journalism always hypes bad news and almost every crisis turns out to be greatly exaggerated,” the authors claim.  This keeps our adrenaline level higher than it needs to be.  Our body reacts; our brain reacts.  They explain, “We have to overcome our visceral response to bad.”  Not only does it affect our body and cause us to have high adrenaline and too much cortisol, but “a negative thing interferes with your thinking much more than a positive thing.  It pulls the focus.”  If you think that you struggle with concentration and staying focused on a subject, you are probably right, especially if you stay connected to a cell phone or computer.  Baumeister and Tierney explain that this pull of the negative is what led to World War I.  Germany was so focused on the bad, on a perceived threat, that they overreacted and started a worldwide catastrophe!

God knew we would struggle with this.  He gives us multiple admonitions on trusting in him and not being thrown off kilter by bad news.  One of my life verses (in beautiful old English) is “Thou wilt keep in perfect peace she whose mind is stayed on Thee, for she trusts in Thee.” Isaiah 26:3 The Psalmist reminds us that those who are righteous “do not fear bad news; they confidently trust in the Lord to care for them.” 112:7

The authors of The Power of Bad urge us to consciously and intentionally focus on the good.  It takes four good things to overcome the power of one bad thing.  So they recommend curating your newsfeed with a “low-bad diet.”  You have to choose to not be triggered by all the bad shrieking for your attention, and to find the good to outweigh it.  Philippians 4:8 affirms this:

Whatever is true, 

whatever is noble and worthy of respect, 

whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, 

whatever is pure and wholesome, 

whatever is lovely and brings peace, 

whatever is admirable and of good repute, 

if there is any excellence, 

if there is anything worthy of praise, 

think continually on these things, center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart.” (Amplified Version)

Proverbs 15:30 says, “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.”  You will have to find the good news, but remember, too, that our lives are full of “good news.”  If you look up “good news” in your Bible, you see all the verses telling us about Jesus, about the gospel.  Isaiah and Romans both praise those who bear good news. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.” Isaiah 52:7 Not only do we need to seek good news, we need to be the bearers of good news – good news about Jesus and good news of the world.  Someone pointed out to me last year that I always brought bad news.  I realized that was true and have made a strong effort to change that.  We can’t eliminate all the bad news, but we can intentionally work to balance it out by promoting good news – four times more than bad news. One place we can do this is on Facebook. So I hope you all join me in not letting the bad be stronger than the good.  Let’s train our brains to look for the good.  

(The quotes are from Caroline Leaf’s podcast interview with Roy Baumeister and John Tierney on “Cleaning Up the Mental Mess”)