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{"source_url": "https://www.theguardian.com", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/01/power-of-bad-how-to-overcome-it-john-tierney-roy-f-baumeister-review", "title": "The Power of Bad and How to Overcome It review \u2013 professional Pollyannas", "top_image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47455081e45f8388d08cec5a5ef1b70522707d29/0_29_3980_2388/master/3980.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=7cd017004f62b4d9e820ec31b20ace18", "meta_img": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47455081e45f8388d08cec5a5ef1b70522707d29/0_29_3980_2388/master/3980.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=7cd017004f62b4d9e820ec31b20ace18", "images": ["https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47455081e45f8388d08cec5a5ef1b70522707d29/0_29_3980_2388/master/3980.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=ebaefdd6cfc7b7a273f8bfa7c7c21b91", "https://phar.gu-web.net/count/pv.gif", "https://phar.gu-web.net/count/pvg.gif", "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2019/01/02/Stuart_Jeffries,_R.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=5dba5f2c45123d127980e92d7d904047", "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47455081e45f8388d08cec5a5ef1b70522707d29/0_29_3980_2388/master/3980.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=7cd017004f62b4d9e820ec31b20ace18", "https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=6035250&cv=2.0&cj=1&comscorekw=Society+books%2CBooks%2CCulture%2CTripadvisor%2CTravel+websites%2CPsychology%2CScience"], "movies": [], "text": "Without wishing to sound too Prince Andrew about this, there are hotels in New York where I won\u2019t stay. One is called the Casablanca, and is extolled in this book as a fine example of how to stick it to the \u201cpower of bad\u201d.\n\nBy \u201cbad\u201d, the authors don\u2019t mean moral or aesthetic bad, but what they call negativity bias. That bias means an unfortunate impression outweighs a good one; a financial loss is more painful than an equivalent gain; and that a hotel\u2019s many five-star reviews on TripAdvisor have no clout over potential customers who have read the single one-star review \u2013 particularly if it mentions rats\u2019 droppings in the bed.\n\nSomething had to be done against this online bias. And so the Casablanca launched a charm offensive. \u201cIf you manage to connect with every single guest, you\u2019ve given yourself an insurance policy against bad reviews because they\u2019re unlikely to say something negative about someone who\u2019s their friend,\u201d argued the hotel\u2019s Adele Gutman, who initiated a policy of what she calls \u201csparkling sunshine\u201d.\n\nJohn Tierney and Roy F Baumeister eulogise this offensive: \u201cFrom the doorman to the bellhop everyone is supposed to beam \u2013 \u201cWelcome to our hotel\u201d \u2013 and treat the guest\u2019s arrival as a singularly delightful treat: \u2018This is your first time in New York? We\u2019re going to have fun with you!\u2019 The favourite part of our job is helping people make the most of New York!\u201d Maybe I\u2019m overcome by negativity bias but just kill me now.\n\nThe bellhop studies how you react to seeing your room and reports back to central control, who offer you a new suite if you\u2019ve disclosed disappointment. Every evening there is free wine and cheese in the lounge so staff can take your spiritual temperature, learn of your every hitherto unexpressed whim and satisfy it. If, presumably, it\u2019s legal. The hotel\u2019s replies to online reviews are often longer than the reviews themselves. This minimises the risk of one-star reviews by obeying psychology\u2019s peak-end rule, which is to leave customers thinking that even if their stay was all blocked toilets and cold showers, at least the staff seemed to care. \u201cWe\u2019re devastated to hear that you did not enjoy your one-night stay with us,\u201d went the Casablanca\u2019s reply to a one-star review complaining about street noise.\n\nThe result? The Casablanca has conquered bad. It has had a five-star ranking on TripAdvisor for more than a decade. Even so, I\u2019d rather stay in Fawlty Towers than be haunted by irrepressible extrovert staff sparkling non-stop sunshine during my stay and nice-trolling me online.\n\nWhat Tierney and Baumeister don\u2019t realise is that there is not just a power of bad but a curse of good too. That\u2019s the sequel right there. But they would be ill-equipped to write it since they are professional Pollyannas who have read too little Adorno and listened to too much Bing Crosby, so they accentuate the positive to the point of complacency. \u201cWe really are living in a golden age,\u201d they write, \u201ceven if most people believe otherwise.\u201d Elsewhere they add: \u201cWe are richer, healthier, freer and safer than our ancestors could have ever hoped to be, yet we don\u2019t enjoy our blessings. The Great Enrichment continues and it will proceed even faster if we can overcome the real crisis by learning to ignore the fearmongers.\u201d\n\nWalter Benjamin wrote of the angel of history moving backwards into the future with debris piling up around his feet, eyes on the ruin of the past. Tierney and Baumeister don\u2019t roll that way. Ignore the debris and the naysayers. Keep your eyes on the prize. Only Cassandras like me doubt there is a prize.\n\nClearly I need to cultivate a positivity bias. But how? The authors have an idea. Each Thanksgiving, diners should write down things they are grateful for on a tablecloth. \u201cThe effect gets stronger every Thanksgiving that you reuse the tablecloth and it makes for good reading the rest of the year too.\u201d I\u2019m grateful for every Thanksgiving I don\u2019t spend counting my blessings with Tierney and Baumeister.\n\nIf their cure to me seems worse than the disease, they are at least astute at diagnosis. The adaptive traits that served our ancestral hunter-gatherers on the savannah hobble us in the 21st century. Those of our ancestors who survived sensibly focused more on avoiding poisonous berries rather than finding the delicious ones. Today we\u2019ve become Chicken Littles, so irrationally fearing that the sky will fall that we hurry into the Fox\u2019s lair where, ironically, we get murdered.\n\nThe authors capitalise Fox in making this point, and I hoped they were subtly indicting Trump\u2019s favourite news medium. One reason, after all, for the power of bad is what they call the crisis industry of journalists, politicians and social media blowhards. Consider terrorism: \u201cRandomly murdering a few innocent civilians was strategically pointless until the late 19th century. Only then, as the telegraph and the cheap printing presses began quickly spreading news, did terrorists discover the power of a single horrendous act.\u201d Yet like several reactionary, improbably upbeat analyses of current politics in the book, this perspective serves neocon values. It wasn\u2019t scaremongering hacks who created Isis; invading Iraq had something to do with it. No matter. The crisis industry makes us worry about jihadists when we should be more concerned about bathtubs. Those killed worldwide by Al Qaeda and Isis is fewer than the number of Americans who died in their baths, Tierney and Baumeister contend. The irrational negativity bias explains how, as they put it, \u201ccountries blunder into disastrous wars, why neighbours feud and couples divorce, how economies stagnate, why applicants flub job interviews, how schools are failing pupils\u201d. And why American taxpayers bankroll spiralling defence expenditure instead of spending a few bucks on non-slip bath mats.\n\nFor the authors, our task is to use innovative rational thought to stop such flubbing, stagnating and blundering. They chart in engaging detail how Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgarten overcame his (quite understandable) negative thoughts about plummeting to death from space by means of cognitive behavioural therapeutic techniques such as repeating mantras and deep breathing. As a result, he acquired the power of positive jumping, falling from a helium balloon in the stratosphere in 2012, reaching 843.6 mph before he touched down in New Mexico 24 miles and four minutes 19 seconds later. Good for Felix: he\u2019ll never be my role model.\n\nThe authors believe we shouldn\u2019t eliminate the negative but harness it for good. They rip into the 1970s self-esteem movement that was devised to thwart the power of bad but that led, they claim, to schools ringfencing students from failure. It\u2019s nuts, they argue, for alienated schoolboys to be chided for playing violent video games. Why? Because being killed online and forced to begin again better prepares them for overcoming failure in the real world than having fragile egos incessantly massaged with school prizes and no real competition.\n\nThe moral? Sticks work better than carrots. \u201cIt\u2019s fine to reward your children for good report cards,\u201d Tierney and Baumeister counsel, \u201cbut you should also deduct something from their allowance if the grades show they\u2019ve been shirking.\u201d That way kids learn to shape up. Sometimes it\u2019s good to be bad.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["Society books", "Books", "Culture", "Tripadvisor", "Travel websites", "Psychology", "Science"], "tags": [], "authors": ["Stuart Jeffries"], "publish_date": "Wed Jan 1 00:00:00 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "We are living in a golden age and can defeat negativity, argue John Tierney and Roy F Baumeister in this complacent, reactionary book", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/favicons/fee5e2d638d1c35f6d501fa397e53329/152x152.png", "meta_data": {"description": "We are living in a golden age and can defeat negativity, argue John Tierney and Roy F Baumeister in this complacent, reactionary book", "format-detection": "telephone=no", "HandheldFriendly": "True", "viewport": "width=device-width,minimum-scale=1,initial-scale=1", "apple-mobile-web-app-title": "Guardian", "application-name": "The Guardian", "msapplication-TileColor": "#052962", "theme-color": "#052962", "msapplication-TileImage": "https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/favicons/023dafadbf5ef53e0865e4baaaa32b3b/windows_tile_144_b.png", "author": "Stuart Jeffries", "thumbnail": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47455081e45f8388d08cec5a5ef1b70522707d29/0_29_3980_2388/master/3980.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=50753eb18948ae7f7a4ae5307e9cfb96", "keywords": "Society books,Books,Culture,Tripadvisor,Travel websites,Psychology,Science", "news_keywords": "Society books,Books,Culture,Tripadvisor,Travel websites,Psychology,Science", "og": {"url": "http://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/01/power-of-bad-how-to-overcome-it-john-tierney-roy-f-baumeister-review", "image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47455081e45f8388d08cec5a5ef1b70522707d29/0_29_3980_2388/master/3980.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=7cd017004f62b4d9e820ec31b20ace18", "description": "We are living in a golden age and can defeat negativity, argue John Tierney and Roy F Baumeister in this complacent, reactionary book", "type": "article", "title": "The Power of Bad and How to Overcome It review \u2013 professional Pollyannas", "site_name": "the Guardian"}, "article": {"author": "https://www.theguardian.com/profile/stuartjeffries", "publisher": "https://www.facebook.com/theguardian", "section": "Books", "published_time": "2020-01-01T09:01:00.000Z", "tag": "Society books,Books,Culture,Tripadvisor,Travel websites,Psychology,Science", "modified_time": "2020-01-01T09:01:00.000Z"}, "al": {"ios": {"url": "gnmguardian://books/2020/jan/01/power-of-bad-how-to-overcome-it-john-tierney-roy-f-baumeister-review?contenttype=Article&source=applinks", "app_store_id": 409128287, "app_name": "The Guardian"}}, "fb": {"app_id": 180444840287, "pages": 516977308337360}, "twitter": {"app": {"id": {"iphone": 409128287, "ipad": 409128287, "googleplay": "com.guardian"}, "name": {"googleplay": "The Guardian", "ipad": "The Guardian", "iphone": "The Guardian"}, "url": {"ipad": "gnmguardian://books/2020/jan/01/power-of-bad-how-to-overcome-it-john-tierney-roy-f-baumeister-review?contenttype=Article&source=twitter", "googleplay": "guardian://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/01/power-of-bad-how-to-overcome-it-john-tierney-roy-f-baumeister-review", "iphone": "gnmguardian://books/2020/jan/01/power-of-bad-how-to-overcome-it-john-tierney-roy-f-baumeister-review?contenttype=Article&source=twitter"}}, "image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47455081e45f8388d08cec5a5ef1b70522707d29/0_29_3980_2388/master/3980.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&s=478b8dce903b221ebd4f664f5653bcfa", "site": "@guardian", "card": "summary_large_image", "dnt": "on"}}, "canonical_link": "https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/01/power-of-bad-how-to-overcome-it-john-tierney-roy-f-baumeister-review"} |
