Think of the big events that came out of nowhere and were so dramatic they captured our attention for days. 9/11, the space shuttle, the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor. If you were there you remember exactly where you were.
All of these were bad news.
Now try to think of a comparable good news event. I can’t. The closest is the Moon landing and the first Moon walk. But it doesn’t fit because it was not a surprise. I can’t think of any unexpected joyful event on the order of the magnitude of these tragedies. On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine such an event. For example, if today it were announced that a cure for cancer has been discovered, then that would qualify. And equally significant turns have come to pass, but they always arrive gradually and we see them coming.
What explains this asymmetry?
1. Incentives. If you are planning something that will shake the Earth, then your incentives to give advance warning depend on whether you are planning something good or bad. Terrorism/assassination: keep it secret. Polio vaccine, public.
2. Morbid curiosity. There is no real asymmetry in the magnitude of good and bad events. We just naturally are drawn to the bad ones and so these are more memorable.
3. What’s good is idiosyncratic, we can all agree what is bad.
I think there is something to the first two but 1 can’t explain natural (ie not ingentionally man-made) disasters/miracles and 2 is too close to assuming the conclusion. I think 3 is just a restatement of the puzzle because the really good things are good for all.
I favor this one, suggested by my brother-in-law.
4 . Excessive optimism. There is no real asymmetry. But the good events appear less dramatic than the bad ones because we generally expect good things to happen. The bad events are a shock to our sense of entitlement.
Two related observations that I can’t help but attribute to #4. First, the asymmetry of movements in the stock market. The big swings that come out of the blue are crashes. The upward movements are part of the trend.
Second, Apollo 13. Like many of the most memorable good news events this was good news because it resolved some pending bad news. (When the stock market sees big upward swings they usually come shortly after the initial drop.) When our confidence has been shaken, we are in a position to be surprised by good news.
I thank Toni, Tom, and James for the conversation.
Cheap Talk 
15 comments
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August 10, 2009 at 3:23 am
Alex
How about the 1980 Olympics where the US hockey team beat the USSR team? I wasn’t alive at the time but people have told me that they remember it like the Kennedy Assassination or 9/11. This wasn’t really resolving any pending bad news per se (unless you count the fact that our hockey team was probably going to lose as bad news). I guess you could say it was some much needed good news about the state of the nation in a time where most of the news was bad.
August 10, 2009 at 3:39 am
Noam
This may be related to the “Anna Karenina” principle whose point is that a good state of affairs usually requires a conjunction of many conditions, while a bad state of affairs can be due to a single condition going bad: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”.
August 10, 2009 at 3:26 pm
jeff
right and there is a flip-side to this that explains Apollo-13 and stock-rebound phenomena. When something has just gone wrong then the Anna Kerenina principle is temporarily waived because it is enough to undo that one thing in order to make the large jump up to the original state of affairs.
August 10, 2009 at 8:13 am
DRDR
I think this discussion is missing the most fundamental asymmetry — the one in the production/destruction function. It is much easier to destroy things than it is to create things.
Furthermore, we have continually benefited from innovation that was unexpected relative to a wider time frame. One confounding issue is that this diffusion of innovation is uncoordinated. I believe we all fondly remember our discovery and adoption of certain technologies, but we experience them at different points in time.
August 10, 2009 at 3:23 pm
jeff
these are great points. I agree with the asymmetry of production and destruction, however the puzzle is then why we have not come to calibrate our expecatations to these. While the magnitudes might differ, there are highly unlikely good outcomes and highly unlikely bad outcomes. When the highly unlikely good outcomes occur we don’t seem to be taken by surpise nor do we engage in as much collective rejoicing.
I associate your second point with the gradual ascent of the stock market. If we all discovered the new possibilities simultaneously and unexpectedly we would see markets soaring as much as crashing.
August 10, 2009 at 9:33 am
Anonymous
I clearly recall where I was during presidential elections that went the way I was hoping they would…. and of course, the happiest moments in my own life.
August 11, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Anonymous
Totally! I’ve got a few African guys on my team. They all asked half a day off to watch the inauguration. Here in Europe, it felt like a day of collective joy!
August 10, 2009 at 12:25 pm
libfree
You mention Pearl Harbor, how about VE day and the Japanese surrender? I imagine a lot of people remember where they were those days.
August 10, 2009 at 3:19 pm
jeff
I agree. I would classify these alongside the Moon landing. They were gripping events that were mostly positive for a large majority, but they were not surprises. They are like the steady ascent of the stock market.
August 10, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Toni
I think the one surprise I remember was the US Hockey Team earning the golf medal in the 1980 Olympics! I believe they beat the USSR in the semi-final game and Finland in the final. I remember getting up at 4:00a.m. to watch the final game. Very exciting event and one I will always remember.
It is true however, that I remember many more bad ones.
August 10, 2009 at 7:03 pm
mike
Excessive Pessimism. Good events are approached with skepticism and caution, while bad events reaffirm our fears and general sense of unease.
Even if the cure for cancer was announced tomorrow, it would take time for us to accept it as the real deal. Good things only take off after a proving period has taken place. Bad things induce us to run first and ask questions later.
August 10, 2009 at 8:34 pm
jhe
Examples of surprise good news? Here’s one – crazy dictator Sadaam Hussein does not have WMDs! How did we find out? OK, scratch that one.
On a more serious note (and this predates me by a bit), the announcement of the polio vaccine seems like a good surprise, though it may fall afoul of the “can’t be a recovery from a bad thing” rule.
August 10, 2009 at 9:42 pm
pireader
Surprise good news–Twenty years later, I still remember every detail of first hearing about the Berlin Wall coming down.
Less dramatically, the collapse of communism in the USSR and eastern Europe had a whole series of “whoda thunkit” events.
August 11, 2009 at 12:16 pm
ed
I agree with pireader. The fall of the Berlin wall is probably the top “surprise” good story of the last few decades.
The loosening of the border restrictions had been building for days or weeks, but it was still a complete surprise to turn on the TV and see people actually dancing on top of the wall. Quite extraordinary.
August 11, 2009 at 1:48 pm
jeff
i agree that the Berlin Wall is the top contender. And the 20th anniversary is just a few months away (Nov 9.)