The role of media vis-a-vis crimes (2)

English>>Life & Culture

Editor's Pick

The role of media vis-a-vis crimes (2)

By Patrick Mattimore (China Daily) 08:30, August 06, 2013

Email|Print|Comments

twitter

facebook

Sina Microblog

There is a strong psychological argument why media should temper the reporting of negative events. "Negativity bias" is the phenomenon by which humans pay more attention to and give more weight to negative rather than positive experiences or other kinds of information.

Roy F. Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State University, co-authored the idea of the negativity bias in a literature review in 2001 entitled, "Bad is stronger than good". This review went through a whole gamut of psychological contexts from first impressions, close relationships, memory, self-identity and more, where a negative bias was apparent.

Baumeister and his co-authors provide fascinating and very convincing evidence from different fields of studies and research that people perceive negative experiences much more intensely than positive experiences. The effect of these negative experiences also seems to have a greater impact and to last longer than the effect of positive ones.

There is, however, a countervailing argument as to why the media must report negative events. It is, quite simply, that transparency builds trust. Psychology aside, if people believe that the media are hiding unpleasant truths or attempting to sugarcoat them, people will be less inclined to believe the media.

The media's job is not to psychologically filter out facts to make press reports more palatable, but to determine what facts are most important for the public to know.

In the final analysis, although psychology may suggest reasons we should not hear or read about negative events, knowing that we are being told the truth is the greatest service the media can provide.

The author taught psychology for many years and is a fellow at the Institute for Analytic Journalism.

【1】【2】