4 Free Webinars this week about Journalism, AI, & Social Media

Mon, Dec 16 - Open and Hidden Sources for Your Climate Investigation; part 1

What: This webinar series will help you discover open and hidden sources, refine your investigative skills, and learn how to navigate information challenges in climate journalism.

Who: Iryna Ponedelnik Project Manager 

When: 6 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Network for Border Crossing Journalism

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Tue, Dec 17 - How to Build a Chatbot Using Gen AI: Accelerating Learning Through Conversation

What: We'll explore the fascinating neuroscience behind chatbot learning, walk you through the step-by-step process of designing your own chatbot, and equip you with essential dos and don'ts for effective implementation.

Who: Margie Meacham is an expert in adapting AI technology to accelerate learning and support performance. She teaches training organizations around the world how to leverage AI for education and training.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Training Magazine Network

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Wed, Dec 18 - Open and Hidden Sources for Your Climate Investigation; part 2

What: This webinar series will help you discover open and hidden sources, refine your investigative skills, and learn how to navigate information challenges in climate journalism.

Who: Iryna Ponedelnik Project Manager 

When: 6 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Network for Border Crossing Journalism

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Wed, Dec 18 - News x Bluesky

What: Share your questions about Bluesky, what you’re thinking about in this space, the successes/challenges of your experimentation on it.

Who: Bluesky’s Emily Liu

When: 4 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Online News Association

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22 Articles about the Business of Running an AI Company

The GPT era is already ending something has shifted at OpenAI – The Atlantic

Harvard Is Releasing a Massive Free AI Training Dataset of nearly 1 million public-domain books – Wired  

Their Job Is to Push Computers Toward AI Doom – Wall Street Journal  

Google Unveils A.I. Agent That Can Use Websites on Its Own – New  York Times 

Former OpenAI researcher raises $40 million to build more empathetic audio AI – Reuters 

Meta rolls out internal AI tool as it pushes into business market – Financial Times 

Perplexity expands its publisher program – Tech Crunch

The UC Berkeley Project That Is the AI Industry’s Obsession – Wall Street Journal

The Furious Contest to Unseat Nvidia as King of A.I. Chips – New York Times

OpenAI looks at chatbot ads – Axios 

Amazon Announces Supercomputer, New Server Powered by Homegrown AI Chips – Wall Street Journal  

OpenAI explores advertising as it steps up revenue drive – Financial Times

Amazon eyes news partners for revamped AI Alexa voice assistant – Axios

Labelers training AI say they're overworked, underpaid & exploited by big US tech companies - CBS News

Who's winning the AI race – Axios 

OpenAI hits pause on video model Sora after artists leak access in protest – Washington Post  

The AI War Was Never Just About AI – The Atlantic  

Stanford’s AI Center names US the top AI ecosystem, China follows – Semafor  

The future of Windows is cloud and AI – The Verge 

TV Writers Found 139,000 of Their Scripts Trained AI – The ankler

Five Canadian news media outlets sue OpenAI for copyright breach – Al Jazeera  

Biden’s Farewell to China’s Tech Sector: A New Type of Forbidden Chip - Wall Street Journal

Creativity’s link to dishonesty

Creative people who can “think out of the box” are prized in the business world, the arts, and science. But a new study has found that creative thinkers are also more likely to cheat to get ahead, and to rationalize away less-than-ethical behavior. Harvard Business School researchers gave personality quizzes to hundreds of study participants and then asked them to perform quick games or other tasks for cash. Participants who scored high on a creativity test were more likely to falsify their results so they could earn more prize money. People who were merely high in intelligence, however, were not more dishonest. It appears that the same “divergent thinking” and “cognitive flexibility” that enable creative people to come up with innovative ways of looking at things also equip them to circumvent ethical norms—and to justify their cheating to themselves. “When you’re a creative person, you can use that creativity to come up with reasons for why unethical behaviors may be okay,” researcher Francesca Gino tells The Boston Globe. These “self-serving rationalizations,” she said, can include deciding that “other people would cheat under the same circumstances or that a little cheating will not hurt anyone.”

The Week magazine

19 Recent Articles about AI & Audio/Video

Researchers Use AI To Turn Sound Recordings Into Accurate Street Images – University of Texas  

Samsung has developed an audio eraser feature for smartphones that will allow users to erase unwanted sounds from videos – Data Company  

Former OpenAI researcher raises $40 million to build more empathetic audio AI – Reuters

The Most Hyped Bot Since ChatGPT Remember Sora? – The Atlantic  

OpenAI’s video generator, Sora, aims to kickstart the AI video era – Washington Post 

NVIDIA's new AI model Fugatto can create audio from text prompts & modify existing sound files - Engadget

Randy Travis’s beautiful baritone was lost. AI helped him sing again. - Washington Post 

Polish radio station ditches DJs, journalists for AI-generated college kids – The Register  

Adobe Firefly Video Model: How AI is Changing the Future of Video Editing - Unite

There’s a New Hit Podcast That Will Blow Your Mind: The hosts aren’t human. – Wall Street Journal  

Podcast: AI and Voice Replication  - Illusion of More  

Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro – The Verge  

Talking through AI and the future of music with will.i.am – Semafor

Amazon is allowing Audible narrators to clone themselves with AI - The Verge

This Hit Music Radio Station Is Fully AI-Generated – Radio World

Amazon's AI Generator Tool Can Now Create Audio Ads – AdWeek 

How To Create And Customize An AI Podcast With Google’s NotebookLM – Forbes

Zoom will let AI avatars talk to your team for you - The Verge 

Mariah Carey Responds to Claims Her Spotify Wrapped Video Was Made With AI – Hollywood Reporter 

AI Definitions: Natural language processing

Natural language processing - This is type of machine learning that makes human language intelligible to the machines. The first step is tokenization. Text is divided into units called tokens and then transformed into vectors—where the words are represented by numbers. These word vectors are lists of numbers. More than 1,000 numbers can be used to represent a single word—meaning that word vector has a high dimension—it’s very nuanced. A low dimension for a word vector means the list of numbers is low—not as nuanced but easier to work with. A deep learning model (typically a transformer model) uses these vectors to understand the meaning of words and determine how they relate to one other. For instance, king would relate to man while queen would relate to woman.

More AI definitions here

Envisioning Failure

Our brains mix real imagery with mental and emotional baggage, which affects performance. Slugger Mickey Mantle is reported to have once said after hitting a long home run, "I just saw the ball as big as a grapefruit." In contrast, poor hitters may see the baseball as small. It’s not just out of reach for them physically but emotionally as well.

A Purdue University study tested the kicking ability of more than 20 athletes who don't play football. They were asked to estimate the size of the goalposts before and after each of 10 attempts to kick a field goal. The more successful the athlete, the more likely they were to overestimate the size of the posts and underestimate the distance.

Success biased the kickers’ perception of the difficulty of their task. Professor Jessica Witt says, “Before you kicked, you really didn’t know what your abilities were going to be.’’ She found the same effect in past experiments with softball players and golfers. University of Virginia psychologist Dennis Proffitt has put together tests that show the effect holds true even when it comes to dangerous situations.

Which are you imagining in your life—success or failure?

Stephen Goforth

Natural Language Video Editing

For the foreseeable future, we’ll still need pro video editors who master the technical details of visual storytelling. But for many everyday situations — trimming a meeting recording, pulling social media clips, or gathering quick highlights — natural language editing may soon be a widely-adopted accelerator of the process. It’s not mature yet, but it’s poised to make video editing accessible to everyone who can describe what they want. AI is beginning to democratize creative work that used to require technical expertise. 

Jeremy Caplan of WonderTools

AI Definitions: Tokenization

Tokenization - The process where an LLM creates a digital representation (a token) of a real thing—everything gets a number; words are translated into numbers. Think of a token as the root of a word. “Creat” is the “root” of many words, for instance, including Create, Creative, Creator, Creating, and Creation. “Create” would be an example of a token. Examples

More AI definitions here

Give people you don’t know a fair chance

When you look at a person, any person, remember that everyone has a story. Everyone has gone through something that has changed them, and forced them to grow. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours. We meet no ordinary people in our lives. If you give them a chance, everyone has something amazing to offer. So appreciate the possibility of new relationships as you naturally let go of old ones that no longer work. Trust your judgment. Embrace new relationships, knowing that you are entering into unfamiliar territory. Be ready to learn, be ready for a challenge, and be ready to meet someone that might just change your life forever.

Marc & Angel Chernoff

18 Webinars this Week about AI, Journalism & Media

Mon, Dec 9 - 30 Minute Skills: Freelance Photography

What: Learn: What to expect when working as an independent photographer. How you can attract clients and build your portfolio. The best business practices for new freelance photographers.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The New England First Amendment Coalition

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Mon, Dec 9 - Teaching Students to Use Artificial Intelligence Ethically 

What: Ways that teachers can build classroom structures and culture that promote the ethical use of AI.

Who: Paul Cancellieri, a National Board-Certified science teacher.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Solution Tree, Education Week

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Mon, Dec 9 - Women in Writing, Editing, and Publishing

What: Hear from a panel of accomplished alumni discussing their work within the field of writing, editing, and publishing, including advice on getting hired and rewards and challenges of the industry. Participate in a lively Q&A session with the full range of panelists. Engage in interactive breakout sessions for personalized advice and valuable networking.

Who: Lucy Feldman, Senior Editor at TIME; Suzy Becker, Author & Illustrator; Natasha Noel AM Writer, Poet & Educational Leader; Taylor Michael Freelance Journalist & Adjunct Instructor.

When: 6 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Brown University Women's Network (BWN) and the Women's Launch Pad

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Tue, Dec 10 - Sound Evidence with Lawrence Abu Hamdan

What: A webinar looking at how journalists can make use of technologies and techniques within forensic audio analysis to enhance their investigations.

Who: Founder and Director of Investigations of Earshot, Lawrence Abu Hamdan; Beauregard Tromp,

convenor of the African Investigative Journalism Conference.

When: 7 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Wits Centre for Journalism, International Fund for Public Interest Media

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Tue, Dec 10 - Lessons Learned from Investigating the 2024 Elections

What: Three senior reporters based in countries that have faced key elections during 2024 will discuss innovative techniques, cross-border collaborations, and the critical importance of investigative journalism in fostering transparency and accountability in elections. The panel will address why investigative journalists should remain hopeful and how their work is more essential than ever to protect the integrity of democracies worldwide.

Who: Poonam Agarwal is an acclaimed investigative journalist from India; Ewald Scharfenberg is an award-winning investigative journalist and co-founder of Armando.info, a leading investigative journalism outlet in Venezuela; Thandi Smith has worked for Media Monitoring Africa for about 12 years and is currently Head of Programmes for the organization; The moderator is Sheila Coronel, director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and a pioneering investigative journalist from the Philippines.

When: 9 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Global Investigative Journalism Network

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Tue, Dec 10 - A Brand-Aware AI Content Strategy

What: Discover how AI is shaping the future of marketing, from content to experience and everything in between. You’ll find out: What brand-aware AI is, and how to leverage it for better content; Strategies to enhance your brand voice, rather than flatten it, using AI; Tips for integrating this approach into your existing workflows.

Who: Michele Fisher, Global Director, Business Strategy, Microsoft; Kelly Masters Senior Product Marketing Manager, Sitecore.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: AdWeek

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Tue, Dec 10 - AI Innovator Collaborative

What: The December meeting of the AI Innovator Collaborative, a regular gathering for ONA members already using AI in journalism to connect and share ideas.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free to ONA members

Sponsor: Online News Association

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Tue, Dec 10 - Global Trust in News

What: Global trust in news, the pace of technological change and the future of journalism.

Who: Bill Gross CEO, ProRata & Chair, Idealab; Faye D’Souza Journalist & Entrepreneur.

When: 10:30 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Washington Post, The Ey Organization  

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Wed, Dec 11 - Exploring ChatGPT and Conversational AI

What: We will explore what conversational AI is as well as the risks, benefits, and considerations when utilizing this technology.  Key learning objectives for this session include: Understanding what conversational AI is and looking at examples, such as ChatGPT; Recognizing what responsible use of conversational AI looks like; Identifying strategies for educating adult patrons about the implications of using conversational AI.

Who: Michael Spikes, Director of the Teach for Chicago Journalism project and a lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism; Kristen Calvert serves as the Events & Programs Administrator for Dallas Public Library.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: American Library Association

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Wed, Dec 11 - How to Build a Chatbot Using Gen AI: Accelerating Learning Through Conversation

What: We'll explore the fascinating neuroscience behind chatbot learning, walk you through the step-by-step process of designing your own chatbot, and equip you with essential dos and don'ts for effective implementation.

Who: Margie Meacham is an expert in adapting AI technology to accelerate learning and support performance. She teaches training organizations around the world how to leverage AI for education and training.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Training Magazine Network

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Wed, Dec 11 - Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Equitable Content Creation

What: How to integrate new technologies like virtual reality, 3D printing, and podcasting equipment to foster equitable content creation. The session will highlight ways to ensure these technologies are accessible to all users and how they can be used to elevate underrepresented voices in media production. Following the presentation, attendees will join breakout rooms for further discussion and connection.

Who: Paris Whalon is the Student Success Librarian for Media Literacy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Media Education Lab

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Wed, Dec 11 - Fact-Checking Tools and Best Practices

What: We’ll explore ways to fight back against misinformation and disinformation during post-election coverage. We’ll use tools such as Google Fact-Check Explorer to track fact-checked images and stories. We’ll use reverse image search and other Google tools to check election claims. We’ll break down doctored video and audio with WatchFramebyFrame and Deepfake-o-meter. We’ll also look at the innovative Rolliapp.com to track disinformation spreaders on social channels. Participants get a handout with links to tools and exercise materials.

Who: Mike Reilley Senior Lecturer, University of Illinois-Chicago.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: RTDNA/Google News Initiative

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Wed, Dec 11 - Shaping Education for Generation Alpha in an Era of AI

What: Members of the National Council of Innovative Instructional Leaders will identify challenges, offer suggestions, and discuss the necessary mindsets and critical components of a successful AI launch and implementation. They’ll also highlight key takeaways from NCIIL’s recent report, Shaping Education for Generation Alpha in an Era of AI.

Who: Jeff McCoy, Associate Superintendent for Academics, Greenville County Schools (SC); Kimberley Markus, CEO, Education Advisors; Casey Rimmer, Executive Director of K-12 Curriculum and Instruction, Union County Public Schools (NC); Shawn Bird, Deputy Superintendent, San Antonio Independent School District (TX); and Jennifer Ferrari, CEO and President, ERDI.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Education Research and Development Institute

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Thu, Dec 12 - Engaging Gen Z Audiences: Strategies for Local Newsrooms

What: This session will provide valuable insights into the current media landscape, Gen Z’s news consumption habits, and practical strategies for local newsrooms and independent publishers to effectively reach and engage this crucial demographic.

Who: Award-winning journalist and digital consultant Adriana Lacy.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free (though you have to sign up for a newsletter)

Sponsor: Indiegraf

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Thu, Dec 12 - Teaching AI Ethics and Accountability: The Digital World is Ours

What: Should educators adapt and find ways to increasingly incorporate generative AI in the classroom? How do schools educate students about this ever-growing technology, its language models, prompt engineering, and the possible positive uses? Should an “Introduction to AI” course be incorporated into curricula? If so, what would be its content? We will explore these emerging questions during this session.

Who: Karen Rezach, Director of the Ethics Institute, Kent Place School (NJ); Kimberly Pearson, Director of Technology, Kent Place School (NJ); and a Panel of High School Students.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Ethics Institute at Kent Place School, Artificial Intelligence in Education

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Thu, Dec 12 - Unlocking Creativity: Using ChatGPT to Generate Gamification Ideas and Storylines

What: This session is designed to show you how to harness the power of ChatGPT, an advanced AI language model, to craft compelling gamification concepts and storylines that captivate your audience.

Who: Monica Cornetti, Founder and President, Sententia Inc.; Rasha Morsi, Ph.D. Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Creative Gaming and Simulation (CGS) Lab, Norfolk State University; Musbah Abdulgader, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Norfolk State University.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Training Magazine Network

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Fri, Dec 13 - What are my digital protections? How to handle (and prevent) online threats as a journalist

What: How to recognize the types of online harassment journalists face most often; When to ignore online harassment and when to take action; What to do when online harassment crosses into illegal territory; Steps you can take right now to help protect your digital presence.

Who: Tat Bellamy-Walker, Program Manager of Digital Safety Training and Resources (Media) at PEN America; María Salazar Ferro, Director of Newsroom Safety and Resilience at The New York Times; Greg Lipper, a D.C.-based litigator with extensive experience in criminal defense and investigations, and First Amendment and media law.

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: National Press Club Journalism Institute

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Fri, Dec 13 - How to Find Journalism-Adjacent Freelance Work

What: Learn how to find work in content marketing, branding, communications and other fields that are adjacent to journalism, and how to adjust to the different demands of this work. Panelists will discuss how to network to good clients, handling yourself ethically, and what kinds of organizations are eager to hire journalists

Who: Ricardo Baca, founder and CEO of Grasslands; Mary Melton, Editor-at-Large, Alta Journal; Stacy Brooks Whatley, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, American Counseling Association.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Institute for Independent Journalists

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No one Thinks They are Average

Research shows just about all of us think we are more competent than our coworkers, more ethical than our friends, friendlier than the general public, more intelligent than our peer, more attractive than the average person, less prejudiced than people in our region, younger-looking than people the same age, better drivers than most people we know, better children than our siblings, and that we will live longer than the average lifespan.

(As you just read that list, maybe you said to yourself, “No, I don’t think I’m better than everyone.” So you think you’re more honest with yourself than the average person? You are not so smart.)

No one, it seems, believes he or she is part of the population contributing to the statistics generating averages. You don’t believe you are an average person, but you do believe everyone else is. This tendency, which springs from self-serving bias, is called the illusory superiority effect.

In 1999, Justin Kruger at the New York University Stern School of Business showed illusory superiority was more likely to manifest in the minds of subject when they were told ahead of time a certain task was easy. When they rated their abilities after being primed to think the task was considered simple, people said they performed better than average. When he then told people where were about to perform a task that was difficult they rated their performance as being below average even when it wasn’t .

No matter the actual difficulty, just telling people ahead of time how hard the undertaking would be changed how they saw themselves in comparison to an imagined average. To defeat feelings of inadequacy, you first have to imagine a task as being simple and easy. If you can manage to do that, illusory superiority takes over.

David McRaney, You are Not so Smart

The Last Person on Earth

Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?  If you are alone on a planet a hierarchical structure makes no sense.  There’s no one to impress.  So, if you’d still pursue that activity, congratulations. If we were the last person on earth, would we still show up at the studio, the rehearsal hall, the laboratory?

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

22 Articles about AI & Ethics

AI Jesus' avatar tests man's faith in machines and the divine – Associated Press

We need to start wrestling with the ethics of AI agents – MIT Tech Review

Military takes on question of when AI is the right thing to do – Military Aerospace 

The Technology for Autonomous Weapons Exists. What Now? – Undark

OpenAI is funding Duke University to research ‘AI morality’ – Tech Crunch

An Introduction to Explainable AI (XAI) – KD Nuggets  

Mickey Mouse Smoking: How AI Image Tools Are Generating New Content-Moderation Problems – Wall Street Journal

AI firms must play fair when they use academic data in training – Nature

Is Using AI tools innovation or exploitation? 3 ways to think about the ethics – The Conversation

Publication Ethics in the Era of Artificial Intelligence – Journal of Korean Medical Science 

Police officers are starting to use AI chatbots to write crime reports. Will they hold up in court? – Associated Press  

Shedding light on AI's black box – Axios

End-of-life decisions are difficult and distressing. Could AI help? – MIT Tech Review

UN adopts first resolution on artificial intelligence - AP 

How Pope Francis became the AI ethicist for world leaders and tech titans – Washington Post  

AI models can vastly increase job candidate pools. It might also improve diversity. – Semafor  

Can AI police itself? Experts say chatbots can detect each other’s gaffes. – Washington Post  

Is AI my co-author? The ethics of using artificial intelligence in scientific publishing – Taylor & Francis   

When it comes to using AI in journalism, put audience and ethics first - Poynter 

The role of legal teams in creating AI ethics guardrails – Legal Dive

New Book Explores Promise and Perils of AI for Scientific Community – Annenberg Public Policy Center  

AI without limits threatens public trust — here are some guidelines for preserving communications integrity - The Conversation

Resilient in the face of Trauma

For at least a century, psychologists have assumed that terrible events—such as having a loved one die or becoming the victim of a violent crime—must have a powerful, devastating, and enduring impact on those who experience them. This assumption has been so deeply embedded in our conventional wisdom that people who don’t have dire reactions to events such as those are sometimes diagnosed as having a pathological condition known as “absent grief.” But recent research suggests that the conventional wisdom is wrong that the absence of grief is quite normal, and that rather than being the fragile flowers that a century of psychologists have made us out to be, most people are surprisingly resilient in the face of trauma. The loss of a parent or spouse is usually sad and often tragic, and it would be perverse to suggest otherwise.

But as one group of researchers noted, “Resilience is often the most commonly observed outcome trajectory following exposure to a potentially traumatic event.” Instead, studies of those who survive major traumas suggest that the vast majority do quite well, and that a significant portion claim that their lives were enhanced by the experience

Why do most of us shake our heads in disbelief when an athlete who has been through several grueling years of chemotherapy tells us that “I wouldn’t change anything,” or when a musician who has become permanently disabled says, “If I had it to do all over again, I would want it to happen the same way,” or when quadriplegics and paraplegics tell us that they are pretty much as happy as everyone else? The claim made by people who have experienced events such as these seem frankly outlandish to those of us who are merely imagining those events—and yet, who are we to argue with the folks who’ve actually been there?

The fact is that negative events do affect us, but they generally don’t affect us as much or for as long as we expect them to.

Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling into Happiness