The age-old saying “the grass is always greener on the other side” is a proverb about envy and perspective, but there’s also a logical reason behind the phrase. Stand on a lawn and look down, and you see all the spaces between blades of grass; the brown soil and dirt underneath, which balance out the green of the grass. Look out at a neighbor’s yard – or any grass in the distance – and you don’t have that same vertical perspective; instead, you see the horizon of grass, clover, and other vegetation rising up from the soil. By default, grass from a distance will always look more vibrant than grass from above. Similarly, comparing your life to those of acquaintances on social media leads to a false comparison – you know the full extent of your life, with all its challenges and problems, with what someone else has curated and chosen to share with the world. In musical terms, you’re comparing your raw demo recordings with everyone else’s greatest hits.
A new study suggests that this is also true with how we remember the past. Researchers Adam M. Mastroianni (Columbia University) & Daniel T. Gilbert (Harvard University) recently published a study in Nature on “The Illusion of Moral Decline.” To quote Mastroianni in the New York Times:
We first collected 235 surveys with over 574,000 responses total and found that, overwhelmingly, people believe that humans are less kind, honest, ethical and moral today than they were in the past. People have believed in this moral decline at least since pollsters started asking about it in 1949, they believe it in every single country that has ever been surveyed (59 and counting), they believe that it’s been happening their whole lives and they believe it’s still happening today. Respondents of all sorts — young and old, liberal and conservative, white and Black — consistently agreed: the golden age of human kindness is long gone.
We also found strong evidence that people are wrong about this decline. We assembled every survey that asked people about the current state of morality: “Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?”, “Within the past 12 months, have you volunteered your time to a charitable cause?”, “How often do you encounter incivility at work?” Across 140 surveys and nearly 12 million responses, participants’ answers did not change meaningfully over time. When asked to rate the current state of morality in the United States, for example, people gave almost identical answers between 2002 and 2020, but they also reported a decline in morality every year.
Other researchers’ data have even shown moral improvement. Social scientists have been measuring cooperation rates between strangers in lab-based economic games for decades, and a recent meta-analysis found — contrary to the authors’ expectations — that cooperation has increased 8 percentage points over the last 61 years.
The study suggests that while our brains shift our attention primarily to negative or potentially harmful information (bad news in the media, or in our own life), that information tends to fade from our memory over time, while positive personal memories can still bring joy, even decades later. If you’re noticing all your current work problems, but remembering only the life-giving aspects of a previous job, you’re likely to look back and think that time was better. Mastroianni again: “When you’re standing in a wasteland but remember a wonderland, the only reasonable conclusion is that things have gotten worse.”
How might this be helpful to consider in your work this week?
This Week’s Tip:
Counteract the ‘everything’s worse now’ mentality by consciously tuning in to the positives of: 1) Your work; 2) Your workplace, and 3) Your colleagues and team. You will have no problem finding the negatives – our brains will do that anyway – but work on diligently finding positive, life-giving, joyful aspects of your work, your workplace, and your colleagues.
- Take notes on your phone or in a small notebook.
- Share your observations with others.
- Notice when someone else shares something they like about their work, and ask an open-ended question to find out more.
- When you find some positive observations about colleagues or your team members, acknowledge them!
- Don’t be discouraged! By taking these steps, you’re consciously making an effort to shift the way your brain works. Like turning a large ship 180 degrees, this takes time, patience, and commitment.
Try this out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.
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Building Bridges Leadership 