Buffering the effects of bad news: Exposure to others’ kindness alleviates the aversive effects of viewing others’ acts of immorality

Abstract

Negatively valenced news dominates the press, with stories of death and destruction gaining significant traction while also negatively impacting people’s mental health and perceptions of humanity. Given that horrific acts happen and need to be reported, we examined if news stories featuring others’ kindness could undo the aversive effects of news stories featuring others’ immorality. In Studies 1a-d we tested whether media exposure to the acts of kindness that occurred in response to a terrorist attack could alleviate the aversive effects of media exposure to the terrorist attack. In Study 2, we examined whether, more generally, the aversive effects of news stories featuring immorality (e.g., homicide, paedophilia, bullying) could be alleviated through news stories featuring acts of kindness (e.g., volunteering, philanthropy, caring for the homeless). In Studies 1 and 2, we found that participants exposed to others’ immorality and then others’ kindness suffered from less aversive changes to their mood, experienced greater levels of elevation and were more inclined to believe in the goodness of others, than participants exposed only to others’ immorality. Given this, we suggest there is merit in journalists shining a light on others’ kindness if people’s affective well-being and belief in the goodness of humanity is to remain intact.

Support for a right-wing populist party and subjective well-being: Experimental and survey evidence from Germany

“…In a similar vein, recent studies relating to COVID-19 have shown that exposure to negative news about the pandemic triggered depression symptoms [ 30 ], increased self-reported mental distress [ 31 ], and was correlated with more severe self-reported mental health symptoms [ 32 ] and reductions in positive affect and optimism [ 33 ]. On the other hand, news stories featuring others’ kindness have been shown to have the potential to undo the aversive effects of negative news [ 34 ]. In the party context, which we study here, negative populist appeals have been shown to trigger negative emotions in their supporters [ 35 ].…”