You know how people have a tendency to slow down and stare at an awful — likely fatal — accident as they pass by? Or sit transfixed watching a graphic piece on TV about a horrific home invasion or a serial murderer’s brutally bloody spree? Or read depressing details about those whose lives were ruined by Ponzi-scheming Bernie Madoff?
Well, thanks to a University of Chicago psychologist, this obsessive-like behavior over matters tragic or gruesome now has an official name. It’s called “negativity bias.” We’re compelled to pay attention.
According to the University of Chicago’s John T. Cacioppo, there’s an “adaptive value to learning from other people’s unfortunate circumstances.” We remember the bad, especially the really bad, more than the good – in order to better, well, survive. In effect, we’re programmed that way.
Actually “negativity bias” has another label: “bad news sells.” As Walter Cronkite once explained: “Most people are not interested in all the cats that did not get stuck in trees today.” Thus, the uncrashed plane and the unbribed judge are not news.
“If it bleeds, it leads” still applies. It’s also a form of programming.