Expats and locals living in New Zealand are struggling to see the positives right now. Photo / Getty Images
A survey identifying New Zealand as the second-worst place to move to out of 52 nations paints a worrying picture of the mood of the nation.
Massey University public relations expert Dr Chris Galloway tells the Front Page podcast that what we're seeing is "an outbreak of gloom" as people focus on the negatives.
"We're facing a perfect storm of negative factors," says Galloway, pointing to inflation, the cost of living, housing shortages and the ongoing impact of Covid.
The survey, conducted by expat network InterNations, captured the views of nearly 12,000 immigrants living in countries around the world.
New Zealand's 51st place out of 52 in the survey was mostly due to lower wages and the high cost of living.
These findings coincide with inflation hitting a 32-year high of 7.3 per cent.
Some commentators have stated that if immigrants are so unhappy living here they should move elsewhere, but Galloway says this is the wrong lesson to take from the findings.
"To argue that those who don't like it here should just go is to ignore the problem," he says.
"It doesn't hear or take seriously the views of people who are saying 'it's not very nice being here at the moment.' It would be better to listen seriously to what the expats are saying and ask ourselves: 'What can we do to fix the situation that has made people feel like this? What can we do to adjust life here so that more people are happy to come here?' We don't want to be a nation that is deaf to the things we don't like to hear."
Galloway elaborates further, saying that the issues facing the expat community will also be felt by the locals living here - and could contribute to more workers looking to take their skills abroad.
"You need to look at our nursing shortage to understand why we should be much more welcoming to staff from overseas... If we want more people to come in, we've got to make sure the welcome mat is genuinely out there."
Looking at the negative mood across the country, Galloway says it's essential for the country not to sink into an overwhelming feeling that everything is horrible.
There's a risk that we could be the architects of a self-fulfilling prophecy of this doom and gloom.
"The cliché is that perception is reality. Well, that's not really true. Our perceptions influence the way that we see reality and we can construct our own realities. So if you're looking only at the negative side of things, we can transfer that negativity to all of our experiences and say the country is going to hell in a handbasket."
This is why economists often track the mood of the nation. It generally provides a strong indicator of which way our consumption habits are going.
Galloway says the tricky bit here is that the mind tends to focus on the negative when we're in the middle of a challenging period.
"This is called negative bias and suggests we human beings are hardwired to be more influenced by negativity than positivity," explains Galloway.
"People will be guided first by their feelings, emotions and intuitive responses. And then we use our brains to rationalise that."
He stresses this point by pointing to the example of gun violence.
"Some people might be feeling unsafe right now. That's an emotion. They can't necessarily pin it down in precise terms but they just don't feel entirely comfortable. Then they can rationalise that by saying: 'Well, the latest shooting just happening down the road - and that's why I feel this way.'"
As these negative emotions are repeated, they become embedded into the psyche of the population - slowly eroding the reputation of the country from within.
"It takes about two years to embed a given reputation in people's minds," says Galloway.
The problem is that it takes far longer to unwind that perception once it has taken hold of the minds and, perhaps more importantly, hearts of the population.
• The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am.
• You can follow the podcast at nzherald.co.nz, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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