Our fears don’t tell the whole story | News | Africa | M&G

Do humanity’s best days lie ahead or behind us? It’s the eternal question in the post-Enlightenment world. We were forged and evolved in fear; that’s how we survived the jungle. Thus it is reasonable to see the world as one in which hope is an endangered species., Swedish professor Hans Rosling described the pervasive cognitive bias that can lead to a feeling of doom: “We must recognise … when we get negative news, and [remember] that information about bad events is much more likely to reach us.

But these feelings are not benign. Not only can they have a major effect on an individual’s self-esteem, but negative perceptions of the world can also affect how we interact with it.by Harvard professor David Levari and colleagues examined this problem. “In a series of experiments, we show that people often respond to decreases in the prevalence of a stimulus by expanding their concept of it.

That doesn’t make irrelevant the news that loneliness and depression are on the rise, and that the wealthier and safer the place you live, the more likely you may be to commit suicide. We just need to replace a story of doom, with a truer story of progress. But we know that what is really exciting about us are the things that lie at the other spectrum of emotion: creativity, collaboration, trust, faith and, as the Harvard Grant Study reminds us, love and mutually rewarding relationships.

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