A bias for good news

When someone tells you, “I have some good news and bad news” about your health, which influences you more in making up your mind about it?  

Scientists have been studying how we take the good news and bad news about the same thing. The most recent was a collaboration among researchers from the University College London, University of Pennsylvania, Freie Universität and Humboldt Universität in Germany. The study is entitled “Selectively altering belief formation in the human brain” by Tali Sharot, Ryota Kanai, David Marston, Christoph W. Korn, Geraint Rees, and Raymond J. Dolan published last Oct. 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US.

The researchers were taking off from an assumed general pattern: One, we adjust our beliefs when we hear good news; two, we do not readily adjust our beliefs when we hear bad news; and three, the bad news is actually set aside which makes us more strongly hold the beliefs we had before we learned of the bad news. If these make up our pattern, then it would be interesting and useful to test what happens to the brain as this happens. They cited that it is important to study this since the tendency to ignore the bad news could result in catastrophic consequences such as what happens when financial bubbles burst, when we ignore the predicted dangers of natural disasters, when we opt for overly aggressive medical treatments or even suffer from overconfidence.

I could not believe it at first but as I read and reread the study, the scientists really did test if they can make the brain reconsider bad news if they altered that part of the brain known to be crucial in updating beliefs and controlling inhibition. The culprit part, which seems to be a natural optimist, is known as the inferior frontal gyrus or IFG. What is even more interesting is that the left IFG is the one notorious for its tendency to ignore undesirable information. The study had 30 subjects aged 20-35 from the University College London. They were divided into three groups and they were given Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS. One received TMS on the right side of the brain, another on the left and another on a control site. Then, the participants were asked to rate the likelihood of 40 random “undesirable” events happening to them. After that, they were shown the actual likelihood of those events in people belonging to the similar socio-cultural environment. Then they were asked again so the scientists could see if the participants changed their minds accordingly as to the likelihood of the undesirable event happening to them.

Sure enough, when they “messed” with the left IFGs, the subjects updated their “belief” even when the new information spelled bad news. For the groups who were given right TMS and TMS on the control site, they exhibited the “normal” pattern that I mentioned in the first part of the column, i.e., they ignored the bad news. I find it fascinating and worrying to know that we have to disrupt the normal functioning of our inferior frontal gyrus to do what seems to be simply logical — to change our minds when bad news behooves us to do so. But the researchers warned us against concluding that we need to mess with our left IFGs to make better decisions. “Better decisions” are arrived at after a consideration of many things and not just the inclusion of “bad news” when you weigh your options.

It does make sense why we are naturally wired to “ignore” bad news. It could be that the resulting anxiety and stress and obsession over the “darker consequences” could spell a greater danger to your health. But can you imagine the decisions you could have done differently if you did not ignore the bad news?

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, we are naturally wired to be optimistic. The bad news is optimism may kill you. And because of this, it seems to me we are all generally doomed to die surprised at how it could happen in ways we did not consider.  

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