"Good things don't go out, bad things spread thousands of miles" means that good things are not easy to be known, but bad things spread quickly and widely.

The social research basis of "good things stay home, bad things spread thousands of miles"

This question is a bit interesting. It is a famous saying that people often use, but no longer understand the truth behind it.

The good and bad things here should all refer to things that are different from the norm, both in a family and in a group.

Although it is something different from the norm, generally speaking, good things will outweigh bad things. Good things are closer to the norm and less noticeable, while bad things are beyond the norm, even if they are slightly worse. Things that no one wants to happen are even more irritating.

From the perspective of the party being spread, if there is something good that you want people to know, no matter how much you know, it will not be enough, and if you don’t want people to know about the bad thing, if you know a little, you will be very concerned about it. This is a contrasting psychology. In life, we can find a phenomenon: if there is a good thing or something glorious, the person involved will make every effort to let people know about it; if there is a bad thing, they must try hard to cover it up. It is said that family scandals should not be publicized.

From the communication side, gloating about misfortunes, prying into privacy, seeking excitement, etc. can all become the psychological needs of communication.

From a communication perspective, most good things cannot reach the level of what happened, while bad things can easily reach this level. Here is a simple example. People build houses in rural areas every year. It is a good thing to be able to build houses. Although it does happen, it happens every year. No one cares about it and it is not at the level of communication. It is enough to know that it is happening. But once the house collapsed and people died, it spread immediately.

In other words, compared to the case of houses collapsing and killing people, housing and the construction of houses for housing are normal, while houses collapsing and killing people is abnormal, so it can be regarded as an occurrence in the communication sense. What level.

There is a classic saying in early communication studies, "It is not news when a dog bites a man, but it is news when a man bites a dog." Dogs bite people often, but people bite dogs almost never. Once it happens, of course it is It’s news, and that’s probably what it means.

Reference materials

Zhihu: /question/20161376