Have you noticed that we dwell on the unpleasant and traumatic events much more than pleasant ones?
We replay arguments in our head, overthinking what we should have said.
We get hung up on something terrible that happened earlier in the week, despite everything else going great.
We tend to remember that one negative comment or insult more clearly than the other hundreds of compliments.
We vividly remember our mistakes and embarrassing moments. Even if they happened ages ago.
And have you wondered why news coverage is predominantly negative? Because negative news immediately draws our attention.
It’s not our fault. Our brains are hardwired with a negativity bias.
You see… the survival of our ancestors depended on their skill of avoiding danger.
They had to always be on the lookout for threats and react instantly. Paying attention to negative stuff was literally a matter of life and death.
Those who were attuned to danger and paid more attention to bad things around them were more likely to survive. And pass on their genes.
So our brains evolved to respond much more — emotionally and physically — to averse stimuli. (Experiments show that when people are subjected to negative stimuli, their brain scans show higher electrical activity)
That’s the reason behind the Negativity Bias. We give much more psychological weight to bad experiences than good experiences.
Naturally, the negativity bias heavily influences your life by influencing all your decisions.
People will do much more to avoid pain than seek pleasure. “Bad” is stronger than “Good”.
That’s why urgencies and deadlines are such good motivators. And that’s why you don’t find it hard to show up at work every day (because you’d lose money and your job if you don’t).
But when it comes to cultivating good habits or working on our passion project, we struggle with consistency.
Bad emotions, bad parenting and negative feedback have more impact than good ones. We are more motivated to avoid “bad” self-definitions than to seek good ones.
In a way, our negativity bias also makes us more prone to other cognitive biases. Focusing on negative stuff activates our sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system. In such a situation the reptilian brain gains more influence, making you act irrationally. (How Your Reptilian Brain Controls You)
The negativity bias manifests as loss aversion in behavioural economics. To most people, losing something feels worse than gaining the same thing.
When people are given a choice of picking between a “guaranteed $20” or “25% probability of getting $100”, most will pick the former. Even though it makes logical sense to pick the latter. (Look up Prospect Theory to dig deeper into this.)
When it’s about taking a risk, we focus more on all that could go wrong, versus all that might go well.
Our brain is wired to play it safe. Back in the days, taking a risk could literally result in death.
But today we face no such dangers. We need to rewire our brains.
Here are a few ideas to tackle the Negativity Bias:
Awareness
The first step towards overcoming our cognitive biases is to acknowledge them and become more self-aware.
Our brain routinely tricks us into making three mistakes:
- Overestimating threats
- Underestimating opportunities
- Underestimating resources.
This is a great way to ensure survival, but an awful way to live. A lot of our decisions are based in fear.
Learn to recognise when your mind is playing these tricks. By being mindful of the negativity bias, you can consciously choose to ignore the false alarms and realize when you’re needlessly dwelling on something unpleasant.
You already know how you can become more mindful and self-aware. Make meditation a non-negotiable habit. (Why Meditate?)
Savour the Positive Experiences
Our brain is like velcro for negative experiences, but teflon for positive ones.
Negative experiences are quickly registered and stored in our emotional memory (That’s why “once burned, twice shy”). But most positive experiences pass through the brain like water through a sieve, unless they are very novel or intense.
So you need to build up your store of positive mental images to address the imbalance the negativity bias predisposes you to.
Learn to be more present. When you have a positive experience, engage all your senses and soak it in. Even if it’s something insignificant.
The longer you hold something in your awareness, the stronger it’s imprinted in your memory.
Gratitude
Gratitude is something I ignored for a long time. “Yeah sure we should be grateful okay whatever”.
Until I was made to feel stupid by science.
Over the last decade, hundreds of scientific studies have documented the emotional, psychological and even physical benefits of practicing gratitude.
Gratitude has been proven to increase happiness, reduce anxiety & depression, strengthen the immune system and improve sleep quality among other things. If you’re curious, here’s an article that goes into the neuroscience of gratitude.
Since we mostly tend to remember the negative stuff, it’s important that we take some time out to think of all the stuff we’re grateful for.
The idea is to make it a habit. It could be as simple as consciously thinking and feeling grateful for all the good things in your life just before you go to sleep.
Training Your Mind
The things you decide to give your attention to not only influence how you feel, but also how you perform. We construct our internal reality by the way we direct our attention.
Recognise that you can consciously and intentionally control where you’re putting your attention. It’s your most valuable asset.
More often than not, our mind will focus on the negative aspects of any situation. And if we constantly focus on the negatives, our perception will get reshaped into seeing negatives in everything.
That’s why it is important to train our brains to look at the bright side of things. So that it can counterbalance our negativity bias.
And it’s a skill. It takes effort and deliberate practice to learn to put our attention where it serves us best.
Watch this 8-minute video: You Have to Make Happiness Your Priority (Naval does a brilliant job of explaining this idea)
Eliminate the Negativity
Yes, we need to cultivate more positivity in our life. But we are far more influenced by negative things than positive things.
So eliminating the negative stuff should get priority.
Cut out toxic people from your life. Curate your news and social media feeds to remove sources of constant negativity. Keep your environment clean. Avoid arguments. All little things add up
Also, stop any kind of negative self-talk. This is extremely important, can’t stress it enough.
The negativity bias shows up in every area of our life — mental health, relationships, business, career. And it influences all our decisions.
Hope you understand how important it is to actively tackle this problem.
Onwards and Upwards.
Thank you for reading. Most of the content on this website has emerged from conversations with readers like you.
Every Sunday, I send out an email dissecting some aspect of the human mind.
If you can take out a few minutes every week, I’ll help you develop a strong understanding of how your mind works. So that you can have more control over your thoughts, behavior, and life.
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Or you can sign-up after reading my story and the core idea behind this website: We Should Be Getting More Out of Our Lives (would recommend)