Book Tip No. 53 (2022): ROY F. BAUMEISTER / JOHN TIERNEY: THE POWER OF BAD. NO LONGER SEEING BLACK AND LIVING WELL.
Frankfurt/New York 2019.
By Hans-Christian Riekhof
Baumeister and Tierney dedicate themselves to a psychological phenomenon that is omnipresent but has not yet received the necessary attention: the negativity effect. It’s about destructive patterns in our perception and information processing – negative events, crises, disasters and negative emotions have a much stronger effect than positive ones. We can think of many more words for negative than for positive emotions. There are distorting effects here that significantly influence our judgment and lead to a false worldview.
We are surrounded by negative news and headlines in a media-connected world. Journalists and bloggers skillfully use the negativity effect: the negative headlines and disaster reports generate more attention, more clicks, more comments, more circulation.
This negativity effect runs through many areas of society, including science itself. Psychologists have researched negative effects much more intensively, such as fears, post-traumatic stress disorders or simply the negative effects of stress.
What remains for us: we can counteract with rational strategies and overcome the irrational negative impulses. Reading the book by Baumeister and Tierney provides the necessary tools and valuable suggestions on how we can escape the power of bad and the negativity effect.
