Denison Forum
Dr. Jim Denison
Research shows that we react more strongly to negative than to positive information, which explains why there’s more bad news than good news in the news. Let’s test this theory. Note your visceral response to these stories:
- The Fed is expected to cut interest rates today.
- New technology can produce drinking water from seawater using solar power.
- Rescuers freed an eleven-year-old boy who was trapped between two boulders for more than nine hours.
- China freed an American pastor after nearly twenty years in prison.
- Research shows that people like us more than we think.
By contrast, what’s your emotional response to these stories?
- AI pioneers are calling for protections against “catastrophic risks.”
- A recent report warns that the US is facing the “most serious and most challenging” threats since 1945, including the real risk of “near-term major war.”
- Infections that are resistant to medications could kill nearly forty million people in the coming years.
- Mosquito-borne diseases are surging in Europe.
- High parental stress is now an urgent public health issue.
- Nearly two in five Americans are at peak stress levels for the year.
Our “fight or flight” instincts may attune us to threats in the news, but new research shows that being “hopeful and forward-looking” is especially effective in combating stress and anxiety.
Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin observed: “The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.” Similarly, the present belongs to those who give the present generation the same.
How can we be people of hope in a hurting world? More Here