The good die young

Abandon all hope, etc.

Another random catastrophe today: On this day in 1943, a mine explosion in Bear Creek, Montana, killed 75 people.

"It's always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster." -- Rebecca West.

Did you know that you might well be suffering from “emotional illiteracy”?

Imagine reading a newspaper article describing the mine disaster. Do you think you’d be more upset to read that 75 people died than you would be if you read that five people died?

Yes, you would, you probably will say. But that’s just what you think.  

In a study done a few years ago, half of the human guinea pigs were told about a wildfire disaster (imaginary). Some were told that five people died, while the others were led to believe that 10,000 died. These groups were then asked how sad they would feel (on a scale of one to nine) if they were to read an entire newspaper story about the fire. As you might guess, those in the 10,000-victim group predicted sadder responses than those in the five-victim group.   

The other half were given the full newspaper articles to read, and then asked how sad they felt afterward. What happened? According to the researchers, the 10,000-victim group felt no sadder than the five-victim group!

There is your “emotional innumeracy.” In other words, we sometimes find it hard to visualize numbers, particularly when emotions are involved. As Joseph Stalin might or might not have said: “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.”