-
Neither agree nor disagree Yes and no. Objective well-being conditions are not directly affected but subjective well-being (SWB) is likely affected by negative news of all sorts, which can have downstream effects. It also depends on the framing and frequency. We can get desensitized (or adapt) to particular types of news. This adaptation reduces the impact of one particular story on SWB, but may lead to a longer-term negative world view, negatively affecting hope, and through hope, numerous life outcomes. The size of such a channel is highly speculative. Second, knowing the scale of suffering in other places may help put our own life into perspective, and allow us to better psychologically manage challenges. Overall, current SWB (in not-distant countries) is not the only thing that we care about. It may be worth sacrificing a little current SWB to provide more complete information, which could in turn affect our perspectives and the lives of others, both our future selves and 'people in distant countries'.
Doctor Kelsey J O'Connor
Researcher in the Economics of Well-being -
Completely agree We know that the poverty of others lowers wellbeing for Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. But many happiness measures do not reflect this including Gallup World poll that did not fall during the Great Recession
Professor David Blanchflower
Professor of Economics at Dartmouth -
Completely agree We published a paper recently in PLOS ONE, which confirmed that for countries not directly involved in the invasion of Ukraine, well-being was negatively affected. First, countries were negatively impacted because they expressed sadness and sympathy for the Ukrainian people's plight. Second, as time passed, our countries were negatively impacted because of the economic spillover effects in the form of higher inflation, gas prices and so on.
Professor Stephanié Rossouw
Associate Professor, School for Social Science and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand -
Neither agree nor disagree "Wellbeing" interpreted (or measured) in the most likely way, is somewhat present-biased, i.e., short-term focused. Therefore sad news is likely to decrease wellbeing, even if there are some competing impacts from empathy effects versus standard-setting effects.
Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Associate Professor, McGill University -
Agree I am unaware of any papers focusing on this specific issue but there is a wide literature showing that people's wellbeing is affected by the wellbeing of others, and that this is linked to the mental or social availability of the suffering. The neuroscience literature on the role of mirror neurons is relevant here. I would have a high degree of confidence that, if a good natural experiment could be identified it would confirm the statement proposed.
Doctor Conal Smith
Principal, Kōtātā Insight -
Neither agree nor disagree I have not seen research in relation to this question. However, I expect that the effects are highly place-specific and context-specific. I doubt that the wellbeing of many people in the "allied countries" was affected negatively by the bombing of Dresden or even of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whereas they would have been affected by the bombing of London (even if they were not living there). I expect that similar dichotomies exist in today's major conflicts - e.g. Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Myanmar, ... Beyond the calamities of war, the reaction to earthquakes in places with which we may identify personally varies enormously compared with places that have a distinctly different culture. Hence we may see headlines such as the infamous "Small Earthquake in Chile, Not many dead" (though this headline never actually appeared).
Professor Arthur Grimes
Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington -
Disagree I am afraid that this tragic event (mass suffering in distant countries) has a wellbeing impact that does not work in simple ways. The relation is complex; following Alesina et al. (2004), who show that the impact of inequality on happiness varies across people, I would hypothesize that the happiness impact of mass suffering in distant countries depends on many attributes that vary across people; for example: 1. How much concerned people are about what happens in the rest of the world (some people do not even take a look at what is happening abroad) 2. How much of these tragic events is presented in the media (in some countries local news consume all of the media time) 3. What media people watch. Sometimes it seems that we live in two different worlds, depending on what media outlet we watch. 4. How the media presents the event. The simplified view of good boys (us) vs. bad boys (them) may influence how people process the tragic event. 5. The attention people put in the event. We are constantly bombarded with new information and new events, so that people's attention quickly switches to other events -it is humanly impossible to focus on everything-. In consequence, I would say that the happiness of some people may decline; in specific, the happiness of those who are concerned about the event, who process it as something terrible, who watch and keep watching the media that is emphasizing the event, and who focus on that event. However, for the rest of people I would not expect that this tragic events would negatively affect their wellbeing.
Professor Mariano Rojas
Professor of Economics, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla -
Neither agree nor disagree There are two countervailing forces: empathy with those suffering and social comparisons that reflect well on our own lives. The net impact is likely to vary greatly between individuals. Some would feel the suffering of the people in distant countries and suffer with them. Others may come to see their lives more positively through comparison with the lives of the people suffering in distant countries. In both cases, though, research by Kahneman and others suggests that the number of people suffering is unlikely to have much impact. More important to emotional impact is the vividness of the suffering, which is often better communicated by focusing on the suffering of particular individuals.
Professor Guy Mayraz
Lecturer, University of Sydney -
Neither agree nor disagree Bad new about suffering of distant people may reduce our own life-satisfaction a bit on the short run but is likely to add to our life-satisfaction in the long-term, since it presses for policies to avoid that the same happens to us. The 'distant people' will typically profit from the bad news about them, both in the short and the long-term
Professor Ruut Veenhoven
Professor of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam -
Agree Making suffering in distant countries more salient makes our own people feel worse, which by itself makes our own people worse off. That is not to say it is a bad thing to report on the suffering of others! On the contrary, world well-being may be increased if the reporting spurs action to alleviate the suffering.
Professor Daniel Benjamin
Associate Professor of Economics, University of Southern California -
Neither agree nor disagree Although the effect diverges across people, on average people seem to be negatively affected by the suffering of others (even if distant). In addition, it seems that people get addicted to these news, once they start watching. On average however it seems that people get used to the mass suffering elsewhere and eventually the negative impact evades; until a new tragedy comes in the media. It seems that many of us suffer from psychic numbing, which means that our empathy decreases as the number of victims in a tragedy increases (or the probability of the event to occur again decreases).
Professor Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Professor of Economics, IAE-CSIC -
Agree Human beings possess a natural capacity for empathy, and exposure to suffering, even from distant sources, can evoke empathetic responses. This can trigger feelings of moral responsibility or a desire to help alleviate the pain and suffering of others, even among individuals who are geographically distant from the affected areas. In the context of media globalization, where information flows seamlessly across borders, individuals worldwide can feel interconnected with those experiencing mass suffering in distant countries. However, the inability to provide direct assistance or solutions can intensify the negative impact of media coverage on individuals' wellbeing. Additionally, too much information each day about mass suffering in distant countries can lead to compassion fatigue, individuals becoming emotionally overwhelmed or desensitized to the suffering of others. Despite their empathetic responses, individuals may feel overwhelmed, helpless, or distressed by the magnitude of the suffering portrayed in the media, exacerbating feelings of compassion fatigue and contributing negatively to their wellbeing.
Professor Daniela Andrén
Senior Lecturer, Örebro University School of Business -
Completely agree I think that it is safe to say that the empirical evidence supports this claim. For example, terrorist attacks in certain countries have been shown to have negative spillovers on the wellbeing of populations in other, distant countries, cf. Metcalfe et al. (2011, Economic Journal) for spillovers from the US to the UK, and so have natural disasters, cf. Goebel et al. (2015, Journal of Population Economics) for spillovers from Japan to Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. In theory, the media are an important mechanism (though I am not sure that media exposure has been shown to be a causal mediator yet), and graphical depictions of suffering (as opposed to neutral information) should clearly intensify spillovers.
Professor Christian Krekel
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics -
Agree Images and stories about the suffering of others provokes negative emotion in most people. So when I agree that it "negatively affects our own wellbeing" -- I mean it in this sense. It does not make people feel good. The war in Ukraine and in Gaza are upsetting to many people. Most people want to feel like the world is generally a safe place and that only unjust people suffer. But these situations threaten that assumption.
Professor William Tov
Associate Professor of Psychology at Singapore Management University -
Agree This is essentially about an empathic response to seeing the suffering of others. We are group animals and get upset at seeing others in anguish, even if they are quite different to us (https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2013.763852). The operative phrase is the prominence of the suffering in the media: we react to what we see and hear. Constant exposure to negative images mean constant moments of negative effect, which has been found to reduce life satisfaction (Diener, Sandvik, and Pavot, 2009). In my own research (Mervin and Frijters, 2014, SocSciMed) we found that this empathic effect of being around suffering was much stronger in women than men.
Professor Paul Frijters
Professorial Research Fellow, CEP Wellbeing Programme, London School of Economics -
Neither agree nor disagree It depends on what causes of the suffering. If the cause is natural, like an earthquake, certainly, this is beyond human control, and one wants to assist as much as possible to alleviate the suffering the concerned people, through donations of tangible and consumable resources, volunteering, and other altruistic means. This is in line with maximising benefits to the afflicted persons in the concerned countries and seeking to minimise their pain. At the aggregate level, these augment the welfare of the suffering society, of humanity and of the givers. The loss of utility to the giving entities or countries far outweighs the gain in utility to the recipient nations, so much so that this tantamounts to outward shift in global community welfare function. Very often, suffering is caused by bad leadership, corruption, poor governance and invasion of a country, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or a conflict situation (Israel- Gaza) and other political factors. Politicians in many African countries often squander resources meant for economic development, through corruption, greed, kleptocracy, and repression of opposition, or rights of people, to stay in power, leaving the poor with limited capabilities for advancement (Easterly, 2021). As human beings, we feel for others in a situation of unjustified or unprovoked invasion, as it causes lots of sufferings to innocent people. The displacement of children, women and families, like the case of Ukrainians, to other countries and the fight for liberty and democracy cause lots of anguish, when exposed and amplified in the media. Evidently, these would negatively affect our well-being of normal citizens, but paradoxically such acts of aggression may copiously feed the ego of the 'rotten leaders', thereby enhancing their own selfish happiness. This detracts from the happiness of other citizens who have a deep sense of morality and of doing good for mankind. In the globalised environment, news travel fast. But at times, while the press and media can be objective and neutral, social media can be distorting, biasing the views of the wrongful doers. One needs press freedom to expose the sufferings of the people in an inter-connected world, and also to take remedial measures.
Professor Darma Mahadea
Associate Professor and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa -
Agree The mass suffering of people affects our well-being all the more negatively the closer the people are to us, the more vivid the information is, and the more avoidable the suffering was. The negative effect is transitory, and habituation may occur. But in the long term, this news may alter our beliefs, mood and preferences, such as our locus of control, general trust, time preference, with negative effects on well-being.
Professor Maurizio Pugno
Full Professor of Economics, University of Cassino -
Neither agree nor disagree Whether our wellbeing is affected by relating to people suffering in distant countries would be a function of: the personality of the person doing the relating (e.g. neurotic individuals could be expected to be more concerned/less happy); personal affiliation(s) or identity to the 'suffering' group (e.g. Palestinians in another country could be expected to be more concerned/less happy due to the suffering of fellow Palestinians in Gaza, or, those with an anti-Russian political perspective could be expected to show more concern/ lower happiness due to the suffering of Ukrainians), or; those with a higher level of consideration for human rights could be expected to show more concern/ lower happiness due to the suffering of other individuals.
Doctor Tony Beatton
Visiting Fellow, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) -
Neither agree nor disagree It Depends. The media plays a fundamental role in the transmission of information. If there are people in remote places who are experiencing great suffering and the press shows it correctly, this indeed could affect our well-being. For some citizens, their feeling of benevolence (the feeling that we contribute to building a better world) may be affected. Benevolence has been conceptualized as a psychological need that has two poles: first, the satisfaction of that need. Second, the frustration of it. Therefore, the well-being of those people who feel low sensation and/or high frustration of their benevolence will see their well-being diminished since they will feel that they are incapable of alleviating the suffering of people, even if they do not know them personally. In addition, the feeling of well-being may also be dimmish in those people with high levels of empathy and compassion when they perceive an inability to alleviate the suffering of those who are shown in the press. Importantly however, well-being may not change in those whose levels of benevolence, empathy and compassion are not affected when see the suffering in others.
Professor Wenceslao Unanue
Assistant Professor, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez