Newspapers and television broadcasts often seem filled with disaster, corruption and incompetence. According to psychologist Tom Stafford, this may be because audiences are unconsciously drawn to depressing stories.
Researchers Marc Trussler and Stuart Soroka at McGill University in Canada conducted an experiment to investigate whether people truly prefer good news. Participants were invited to a lab for what they believed was a study on eye tracking. They were asked to select political stories from a news website to read, while the real purpose was to observe their choices.
The results showed that participants often chose negative stories about corruption, setbacks and hypocrisy over neutral or positive ones. Those with a greater interest in current affairs were particularly likely to select bad news. Yet when asked, the same people said they preferred good news and believed the media focused too much on negative stories.
The researchers describe this as evidence of a 'negativity bias' – an evolved tendency to react quickly to potential threats. Lab experiments have shown that people respond faster to negative words like 'cancer' or 'bomb' than to positive ones like 'baby' or 'smile'.
However, another interpretation is that people pay attention to bad news because they generally view the world as rosier than it actually is. This positive outlook makes negative events more surprising and salient. Stafford suggests that our attraction to bad news is more complex than simple cynicism or a dark hunger, offering a glimmer of hope for humanity.
