![]() ![]() A company where employees are trusted to make decisions, increases it profitability. What if we believed more in our fellow humans and arranged our society accordingly?īregman shows us what happens when we start from a perspective of trust and friendliness. What would happen if, instead of focusing on our bad side, we took a more positive and more realistic view of humankind? Such a binary choice is a dramatic oversimplification. How can we believe in humankind when all we read are stories about greed, rape, aggression, murder, and war? The constant stream of negative news makes us all think the world is doing a lot worse than reality, and it makes it hard to believe in our inner goodness. When we were still hunters, living in the wild, our negativity bias helped us watch out for and avoid danger.īut now, our negativity bias warps our world view. We all pay more attention to bad news it’s called the negativity bias. In his book Factfulness, Hans Rosling calls it our “overdramatic worldview.” Journalists focus on bad news because that gets more clicks and more views. They’re compassionate.īad news is broadcasted for 24 hours every day of the week, and it warps our view of humans and the world. However, time and time again, the true stories show that when a crisis hits, humans become their best selves. We are what we believeĪccording to Bregman, there’s a “persistent myth that by their very nature humans are selfish, aggressive and quick to panic.” This combination of storytelling and data is compelling.Ī story engages us emotionally and helps us remember, and the data connect the story to the bigger picture. Bregman quotes the authors of that analysis:Īdditional bystanders even lead to more, rather than less, helping. But a meta-analysis of 105 studies on the bystander effect also shows that if the emergency is life-threatening, then there’s an inverse bystander effect. Sometimes we let others take charge or we’re afraid to do the wrong thing. In 90 per cent of the cases, people help each other out. For instance, Marie Lindegaard analyzed thousands of videos of “brawls, rapes, and attempted murders” in Copenhagen, Cape Town, London, and Amsterdam. Last but not least, Bregman backs up his stories with wider analysis and facts. Another vote against the bystander effect. It was the police who showed up late.īregman also tells fresh stories, like the story of 4 bystanders-complete strangers-who jumped into an ice-cold canal in Amsterdam in February 2016 to save a mother and her toddler trapped in a car. He shows us what really happened-Kitty Genovese didn’t die alone her friend Sophia Farrar rushed out to help her. It is one of the many mistold and misremembered stories that Bregman corrects in his book. In his book Humankind, Bregman is on a mission to show us that humans are basically good, and he deploys a powerful way of persuasion.įirst, he tells us a story illustrating the indifference, aggression, and selfishness of human beings-just like the bone-chilling story of Kitty Genovese as I had originally read it. ~ Yuval Noah Harari How to persuade with stories (…) the only thing that can replace one story is another story. It’s the true story of a caring neighbor and authorities showing up late. ![]() ![]() Of the people who did wake up, two called the police.īregman’s version of Kitty Genovese’s story is not a story about indifference. It was a cold night, and most people slept with their windows closed. The original story I read suggests 38 eyewitnesses were doing nothing, just watching. Her friend Sophia Farrar rushed out of her apartment to help, risking her own life. I recently read a different version of Kitty Genovese’s story in Rutger Bregman’s book Humankind. I shiver.Īre humans really so indifferent to each other? But what if the story is wrong? The bystander effect suggests that if more people watch an accident happening, they’re less likely to help out.Įven while typing this story now, I feel the cold creeping into my bones. The story was a symbol for the anonymous life in big cities, and it was used as proof for the bystander effect. Genovese’s story was widely reported, not so much because she died from her stab wounds but because her neighbors ignored her screams for help. That is the image that got stuck in my mind. Her neighbors watched on from the safety of their apartments, their windows lit up. What I remember most vividly from that story is that none of her 38 neighbors called the police. In 1964, Kitty Genovese was stabbed in New York in the middle of the night. Years ago, a powerful story embedded itself into my mind, influencing how I view the world … The story I remembered Stories help us make sense of who we are (or who we want to be). They teach us what’s wrong and what’s right, who are heroes and who are villains. Intuitively, we all know the power of stories.
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