Beat The Negativity And Gap Instinct To Be Happier
How Hans Rosling can help us improve our mental health
Nowadays, it seems that bad news is aplenty. The news constantly blares the most recent death, reminding us of our mortality. Our social media accounts are drowning with depressing news. And no matter how isolated we try to become, terrible news always seems to be around the corner (what? You mean there’s another fire somewhere??).
With this much negativity, it seems that we’re in the wrong time period to be happy. Yet, Hans Rosling has something to say about our “mega misconception that ‘the world is getting worse’” (2018, 40)
In his book Factfulness: Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world and why things are better than you think, Hans Rosling points out that despite the many challenges we face today, the world is actually in a much better place. In this book, he introduces 10 different instincts that lead us to make incorrect and pessimistic assumptions about the world. As I read the book, I found that the first two — gap and negativity instincts are the most helpful in allowing me to have a more positive outlook on the world.
What the Negativity Instinct is All About
According to Rosling, the negativity instinct is the impulse that causes us to notice the bad more than the good. For example, when studying a gradually improving trend, we would tend to notice the large dips more than the overall increase.
Due to the negativity instinct, we are likely to look out for bad events, unknowingly ignoring the good news in the process. And because this instinct plays a large role in shaping our understanding of the world, we unknowingly subscribe to negative outlooks and fail to notice the good news right in front of us.
For example, did you know that manatees and the giant pandas are no longer classified as endangered species? And that in August 2020, WHO certified the African Region as wild polio-free after 4 years without a single case. This means that five of the six WHO regions (over 90% of the world’s population) are free from wild poliovirus. Furthermore, data has shown that the global death rates from unsafe water sources have fallen dramatically since 1990.
In reality, good news is everywhere too. However, because of our negativity instinct, these good news often slip under the radar. Furthermore, because bad news gains more attention from readers (again, our negativity instinct in action), the media leans towards sharing more sensationalist bad news, intensifying the pessimistic outlook created by the negativity instinct.
What About the Gap Instinct?
“Whenever there is a gap between one thing and another, from a data perspective, it is easy to fall into the temptation to focus on the two separate things, and lose sight of the fact that there are often more data points right in the middle, between the two.” ~ Rosling
Rosling shares that the gap instinct is created by our need and inclination to divide all kinds of things into two distinct and often conflicting groups”, often with “an imagined gap” in the middle. While drawing comparisons using extremes or averages allows us to make a quick contrast to study certain trends, Rosling rightly argues that there is often a wide spread of data, with the majority of individuals sitting right where the supposed gap is.
While this doesn’t seem like a huge issue, the gap instinct actually heavily distorts reality and instantly changes the choices available to either and or, ignoring the fact that most people reside in the middle of the two ends that are being compared.
Furthermore, when we fall into this temptation to look at an issue as two extreme separate sides, the gap in the middle can cause the situation to seem much worse than it actually is. In factfulness, Rosling uses the example of wealth levels to illustrate this issue. Even though the wealth gap is no longer as large (a decrease in individuals in extreme poverty), the gap instinct could lead us to wrongly conclude that there is a larger group of individuals living in extreme poverty than there is in reality.
Beating These Instincts to Become Happier
“To achieve Factfulness, we need to recognize that more bad news will enter our ears” ~ Rosling
Understanding these two instincts will not make everything better magically. News outlets will continue to push bad news while others can continue to push for sensationalist titles by drawing comparisons between the extremes in any scenario.
However, what we have to do is to draw the right conclusions with what is available to us. Remember that amidst all these terribly pessimistic news, there are good and optimistic events that are happening out there. Go forth and look for these stories. By reading and signalling to these outlets that good news can gain as much traction, we are indirectly encouraging them to push for more of such news.
“more bad news does not equal to more suffering” ~ Rosling
Instead of focusing on the bad, focus on some of the good things that have recently happened. Losing hope only causes you to become stressed out and depressed. Understand what is improving and make the effort to improve it further when we can.
The next time you find yourself overwhelmed by all the bad news, take a deep breath and focus on the good. You hold the great power to focus on the good and make yourself happy.
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