An overly simple model of positive and negative contagion

When people feel bad and act badly, if only in rhetoric, they make others around them worse as well.  That is a simple account of negative contagion of mood.

There is positive contagion too, but it is harder to pull off.  If nine people tell you nice things, and one person serves up a somewhat credible insult, it is the insult that sticks with you.

Most social times are a relatively stable mix of positive and negative feelings, but sometimes the dynamics of negative contagion take over, and negativism leads to yet more negativism.  Arguably this happened in Europe before WWI, and arguably it is happening in many countries today, including the United States.  Very bad events, such as financial crises, also can trigger cycles of negative contagion.

This negative contagion is self-validating.  If all the negative feelings, expressed collectively, in fact make outcomes worse, it will seem those negative feelings are justified.  In this equilibrium the negative feelings about “opposing others” will be true, but still it would be better to avoid that equilibrium altogether.

A country can get out of a negative cycle either by winning a major war, or when a political entrepreneur comes along with enough oomph and reforms to shift the equilibrium, as Ronald Reagan did in America.  Still, negative cycles are hard to break once you get into them.  That said, over time things do start to become worse, so options for the positivity entrepreneurs do arise, at least if they can overcome coordination problems and get enough people to feel better.

Many thinkers and writers contribute to this equilibrium of negative feelings, most of all by writing about each other.  Even if their substantive points are correct, their social marginal product usually is negative, though you can learn from them because they are competing to offer the most incisive critique.

If you can avoid being overwhelmed by the peer pressure of this negative dynamic, the private and social returns are high.  You can just keep on going and build things.  Yet few are able to resist the logic of Durkheim, no matter how ostensibly contrarian they may be.  In fact the contrarians are often at greatest risk of being caught up in this, because they are so skilled in rejecting and also criticizing the claims of the opposing forces.

Happy Fourth of July!