Hurricane after hurricane, North Korea’s missiles and bombs, earthquakes, wildfires, Francois Hougaard still appearing in a Bok jersey at scrumhalf – sometimes it really does seem like the world is about to end.

That’s a sentiment shared on social media as well, because look at the retweets and likes these folks are racking up:

On a more serious note, when natural disasters and the like occur with such regularity it’s easy to lose hope. Imagine the despair of those whose homes have been destroyed, with relief slow to arrive and conditions dire.

Cognitive science isn’t going to rebuild their homes, but it does remind us that the world isn’t yet coming to an end. Some of the science via BusinessInsider:

People have been feeling like the world is ending for thousands of years. But it wasn’t until the 1970s, when a Hungarian professor named George Gerbner observed television’s hold on the public, that someone developed a theory to diagnose the feeling.

Gerbner called it “mean world syndrome,” and it referred to Americans’ false belief that the world was getting more dangerous, even if statistics showed (and continue to show) otherwise.

A recent example is bullying. Despite rates of bullying going down in schools across the US, one study of Maryland students found that both students and parents believed rates hadn’t changed much from 2005 to 2015. Meanwhile, bullying had actually decreased from 28.5% to 13.4%…

The same holds for natural disasters. Research has shown they’ve been increasing in prevalence globally for the past 40 years, but not dramatically so. Even if each incident seems cataclysmic, the increase in frequency has been steady.

Consider the likes of Facebook and Twitter doing their thing, and it’s no wonder many believe that bad situations have worsened in recent times.

During studies conducted in the 1990s, psychologists discovered the easiest memories to recall were those that were most unique, or carried the strongest emotional weight.

Houses being torn apart by storms and toppled buildings? Far more emotive than more peaceful scenes, of course.

It is true that Hurricane Irma is a record breaker in many respects (some of those HERE), but a little truth bomb about the recent spate of hurricanes:

The truth is, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Katia took place in a hurricane-prone area during the peak of hurricane season. The last time multiple storms hit the area the same time was 10 years ago, and then 10 years before that. The availability heuristic states that these events seem apocalyptic because they consume our attention, even if the data suggest they are both predictable and rare.

That’s not to say we can all quit worrying about tomorrow and dismiss climate change, but rather that ‘mean world syndrome’ might make many believe things are a touch worse than they actually are.

Also we made it through Monday, so there’s that.

[source:businessinsider]