“Sometimes negative news does come out, but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women, that is, the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.”

Pope Francis

In social and behavioral sciences there is a concept called “non-complementary behavior.” According to this concept, if we react to others in a non intuitive way it can change the reactions we get from others. An example of this might be that if someone close to us gets angry at us, our intuitive response is to get angry back. According to non-complementary behavior, if we treat that person nice, and don’t get angry back, we are more likely to dispel their anger at us and get a positive reaction to what we want.

I wonder if we could apply the same principle to our view of what is happening in the world? If we perceive the world as a violent and difficult place, and we respond by being frustrated, we are more likely to keep seeing the world as a violent and difficult place. However, if we perceive the world to be a violent and difficult place and respond by finding the things in the world that are good, instead of cursing at the world, we are more likely to see the world as a “good” place.

Our perceptions of the world drive what we think about the world. Perceptions are something that can be changed if we have a mind that is open to seeing the big picture. When a police officer is killed in the line of duty, realize that there are at least 799,999 police officers that are out there protecting us that have not been killed. When there is a war in the Middle East where 3,000 American soldiers have died. Remember what it was like when 58,209 American soldiers died in Vietnam, or the 36,000 American deaths in the Korean War, or the 405,000 dead in World War II, or the 750,000 dead in the Civil War.

In the 35 years between 1940 and 1975 over 500,000 American military personnel were killed. In the last 45 years from 1976 to the  present there have been just over 7,000 American military personnel killed. Things in the world are obviously more peaceful now than they were in the middle of the last century. While any military deaths are too many, the trend is a very positive trend.

This analysis can be applied to other things we perceive to be negative. The incidence of crime has also reduced significantly. We had about 9,500,000 crimes committed in the United States in 2014. That is down from about 14,000,000 crimes committed each year throughout the 1990s.

We should be rejoicing at the reduction in deaths due to war and and the reduction in crime. Because of a negativity bias in our psyche, and because of the constant exposure to the media, many Americans do not see the positive trends as people evolve.